Alleged United Front Proxy Facilitated Millions to Linda Sun, Promised to Secure Gov. Hochul’s Re-election: PRC Corruption Trial

The image of Henan Chinese Communist officials and an alleged United Front–linked community leader meeting with Kathy Hochul on the left, which was introduced as evidence in Linda Sun’s case, strongly resembles a Chinese media photo depicting a meeting between alleged United Front figures and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the right.

BROOKLYN — The trial of alleged Chinese agent Linda Sun heard evidence this week that she claimed to have deep control over New York governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo, and that a local diaspora community leader, said to be tasked by Beijing, promised to “support Hochul’s re-election” even while he allegedly helped China covertly flood Sun’s family accounts with well over US$20 million in secret transfers. Those funds were allegedly moved through a network of diaspora power-brokers acting at the direction of Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

Shockingly, while Sun boasted of control over both governors, she stated that Hochul was “more obedient” than Cuomo had been to her guidance on matters related to China, the United States, Taiwan, and China’s human-rights abuses.

According to court records and Chinese-language reports reviewed by The Bureau, prosecutors say the New York diaspora community leaders not only brokered illegal visa pipelines and business deals for Henan provincial officials, but directed Sun to repeatedly forge letter after letter on state letterhead to help Chinese United Front officials enter the United States.

Simultaneously, through longstanding, mutually beneficial relations with Linda Sun, they were also allegedly asking her to provide Chinese community leaders with New York government awards and titles, so they could rise within China’s United Front system.

If the evidence is accepted as truthful by jurors, it will likely establish the clearest and most sophisticated picture in modern history of a Chinese United Front operation involving a senior American government staffer, Beijing-guided diaspora community leaders, and Chinese agents in the mainland and New York consulate — securing deep influence over senior American elected offices.

But The Bureau’s analysis suggests the case also fits typologies long recognized in Canada, as reflected in classified and declassified intelligence documents and in accounts from multiple Canadian government officials.

Photographic evidence introduced at trial, for example, shows Henan provincial officials and the diaspora leader who allegedly asked Sun to forge letters in Kathy Hochul’s name to ease their entry to the United States — and who, according to prosecutors, promised to support Hochul’s re-election — meeting in June 2018 with then–Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul while presenting a traditional Chinese painting.

Separately, similar ceremonial gift exchanges — such as a 2016 photograph of former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau receiving a Chinese scroll painting from alleged United Front officials and diaspora proxies — closely resemble the New York evidence, suggesting that such presentations are a long-standing practice in Beijing’s broader North American influence networks. However, there is no evidence before the court that the Trudeau event was connected in any way to the New York case.

In recent days, jurors in Brooklyn federal court have been walked through two intertwined stories: an alleged political-influence machine that reached straight into the offices of New York’s governors, and a sprawling underground financial network that, according to the government, laundered Chinese state-linked proceeds into the Sun–Hu family’s properties and accounts.

Sun, a longtime political aide who handled Asian and immigrant outreach for Cuomo and later Hochul, is accused of secretly acting as an agent for Chinese consular and Henan provincial interests. Evidence summarized in Chinese-language coverage shows extensive email and text exchanges in which Sun told a vice-consul she could “control Hochul’s schedule” and later claimed to have coached Cuomo on what to say about China — with the official replying that “Governor Cuomo also said we did very well.”

The messaging battle came into sharp focus around a 2021 Lunar New Year greeting. According to court reports, Sun asked the consulate for “points that must be included” in a video address from Hochul, then worked behind the scenes to strip out any reference to Xinjiang and Uyghur human-rights abuses. When Hochul’s speechwriter pressed to mention “the Uyghur issue,” Sun privately told Consul General Huang Ping, “I absolutely cannot let her mention that.”

On January 25, 2021, Sun sent the finished New Year video to Huang, remarking that Hochul was “more obedient than Cuomo.” The greeting was ultimately released by the Chinese consulate and made no mention of Xinjiang, aligning precisely with the consulate’s preferences.

At the same time, prosecutors have used documents and testimony to describe what they depict as an off-books visa and access pipeline for Henan officials, run through Sun and two powerful Henan-linked community leaders in New York: Frank Zhang (Zhang Fuyin), former head of the Henan Association, and businessman Shi Qianping.

Court testimony summarized in Chinese-language trial coverage says Zhang and Shi acted for years as a “bridge” between Henan provincial authorities and Sun, arranging mutual visits and helping to open up China market access for Hu’s seafood ventures. Zhang is said to have organized a 2017 trip to Henan, with Sun, family members and business partners hosted at provincial expense, as well as later visits to China where Sun’s husband, Chris Hu, negotiated a seafood base for Foodie Seafood LLC.

Alongside the political-influence narrative, the government has rolled out detailed financial charts that it says show how Sun’s family benefited from those relationships. A government forensic accountant testified that, beginning in 2016, Hu’s seafood company Foodie received roughly US$24.84 million from his uncle, Chen Xiaoshi, and related Chinese companies — with income peaking in the late 2010s and dropping sharply when Covid hit.

In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic Sun is accused of using her state-government role to steer New York State PPE contracts — worth more than US $40 million in total — to vendors run by a second cousin and by Hu and one of his business associates. Prosecutors allege that she and her husband then siphoned millions in kickbacks and laundered the proceeds through bank accounts opened in relatives’ names. According to a spreadsheet recovered from one of Hu’s electronic accounts, he recorded expected profits from those contracts of about US $8.03 million and marked the column for those gains simply “me.”

On the Chinese seafood-business payoffs, a government witness pointed jurors to a ledger category labeled “Cash China – Sandy,” identifying the remitter as logistics-company head Sandy Hong. Prosecutors argue that funds logged under “Cash China – Sandy” were broken into smaller transfers and layered through proxy accounts and cash withdrawals, and that most of the money ultimately went into paying cash for the couple’s US $3.6-million Long Island mansion and US $1.9-million Hawaii condominium.

Charts also linked a clothing company called Constar or Canstar — run by Sun’s cousin, Henry Hua — to three US$500,000 transfers into Sun’s mother’s Signature Bank account in 2020, totalling US$1.5 million. Those funds were later moved into entities controlled by Hu, the witness testified. On top of that, more than US$2 million allegedly flowed directly from Chen into Hu’s personal accounts. Prosecutors have framed these transfers as kickbacks tied to New York State pandemic personal protective equipment contracts, synchronized with the state’s emergency procurement of masks and gloves.

FBI Special Agent Connor Davis added further texture, describing a July 2024 search of Sun’s parents’ home in which agents found about US$260,000 in cash in a safe — some neatly banded in US$10,000 stacks, some in loose notes. Davis testified that investigators then tried to reconstruct the money trail behind the Long Island and Hawaii real-estate purchases by matching amounts and dates across a chain of transfers from China into United States banks and ultimately into the closing transactions.

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