The mayor of the Los Angeles-area city of Arcadia, located in the US state of California, has resigned and will plead guilty to illegally acting as an agent of China, authorities have said.
“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division on Monday.
“Let this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice,” he added, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
Eileen Wang, elected mayor of the 56,000-person city in 2022, appeared in federal court on Monday and was released on a $25,000 bond, according to NBC News.
She was charged with acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government and agreed to plead guilty later.
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