British police are investigating reports of three unofficial Chinese police stations operating in the UK, a Home Office minister confirmed on Tuesday.
Security Minister Tom Tugendhat also told MPs that the government is assessing the reports, as well as other actions by Chinese officials that are “incompatible with diplomatic status.”
According to a report published in September by human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, a Chinese police bureau, Fuzhou Public Security Bureau (PSB), had been operating dozens of overseas police “service stations” including two in London and one in Glasgow, Scotland.
The phone number for the Glasgow station, listed in a Chinese-language news report that was cited in the Safeguard Defenders, is coupled with an address belonging to a Chinese restaurant while the London stations shared addresses with a Croydon food delivery place and a Hendon estate agent….