The FBI has arrested two New York residents for allegedly running a covert police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown on behalf of the Chinese government. U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced the indictment on Monday, saying the site was operated by China’s Ministry of Public Security to target pro-democracy activists and other Chinese dissidents in the U.S.

Breon Peace: “On at least one occasion, an official with the Chinese national police directed one of the defendants, a U.S. citizen who worked at the secret police station, to help locate a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent living in California. In other words, the Chinese national police appear to have been using the station to track a U.S. resident on U.S. soil.”

China’s Foreign Ministry denied the charges and accused the U.S. of “groundless accusations.”