Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: The Invisible Hand of Fear

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

Fear can be a powerful weapon. Gao Zhi, a 44-year-old Chinese man, knows this well. In 2020, after criticizing the Communist Party on social media, he left China and gained asylum in the Netherlands. But after Wang Jingyu, a Chinese celebrity dissident, moves into Gao's home, things start to go terribly wrong. Gao fears he and his family are now in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party. On this episode of The Sunday Story, NPR's Global Democracy Correspondent Frank Langfitt and a reporting partner bring us the story of Gao and Wang. It's a tale of how the fear authoritarian regimes sow can be used to create a world of lies, betrayal, and manipulation.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. People can flee authoritarian regimes, but escaping their grasp, that can be a lot tougher. In 2018, a former Russian spy and his daughter were found poisoned on a park bench in England. That same year, a prominent Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist was dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. And in 2023, Canada accused the Indian government of gunning down a Sikh separatist in Vancouver. Killings like these aren't the norm, but authoritarians are increasingly reaching around the world to threaten and frighten their critics. Today on the Sunday Story, NPR's global democracy correspondent Frank Langfitt brings us a remarkable tale of two such critics who left China and sought asylum in the Netherlands.

Frank and a reporting partner spent months investigating the men's saga. They thought their reporting would expose the shadowy world in which China targets dissidents overseas. But the facts led in unexpected and surprising directions. And the story they found turned out to be about the power of fear itself. And how it can be used as a weapon, not just by authoritarian regimes, but by just about anybody. Stay with us. This message comes from NPR sponsor Organic Valley, a co-op of small organic family farms. Farmer Tyler Webb shares why caring for his land has always been a priority. I'd like to contribute to my community an array of ecosystem services beyond just milk. Building topsoil and holding on to water and

supporting wildlife to build that resilience that will support generations to come. Discover organic valley dairy at ov.coop slash ethically sourced. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. This message comes from MSNBC. What's causing the rise in book banning? On the second season of the Velshi Banned Book Club podcast, Ali Velshi speaks with authors of banned books to try

and find out. Search for Velshi Band Book Club to follow and listen to the series. This is a Sunday story. NPR's Frank Langfitt spent a decade reporting in China, and he's also covered Chinese repression in Europe, which is how he came across this story of two Chinese dissidents. Frank's reporting partner asked not to be named to protect their family, so Frank takes it from here. We begin with Gao Jie. He's a small, wiry, working-class guy, 44 years old with a goatee. I began talking with Gao in 2023. Over video chat, Gao told me the story of how he left China and ended up in the Netherlands. Gao grew up in China's boom years in a small village. Like tens of millions of other rural Chinese men, he moved from job to job.

For instance, a waiter, a factory worker. He also worked as a security guard, drove trucks, opened a restaurant, and was an alcohol salesman. Gao wasn't political growing up, but he learned how to get around China's internet censorship and began reading news sites overseas. In 2019, Gao read about the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. He was outraged and vented online. I started cursing the Communist Party, saying the Communist Party should be annihilated. Gao recalls trying to talk to fellow factory workers about the protests. We have a very big canteen in the factory.

There were four large TVs airing China Central Television. They were showing manipulated footage of the Hong Kong protests. I was telling my co-workers, it's not like this. But then I found out the people around me, they actually support the crackdown. They thought the protesters should all be destroyed. Gao says he was so disappointed. He just wanted to leave China. I found that even if you want to enlighten some people, there's not much you can do. You end up being very pessimistic.

Gao managed to get a flight to the Netherlands and entered on a tourist visa. A few days after he arrived, his father messaged him. Police had come asking about Gao's whereabouts. Gao's father urged him to return and said he might have to do some prison time. At this point, I thought, wow, it's serious. No way I can go back.

Gao asked for and was granted asylum by the Dutch government. His wife and two teenage kids remained in China. Gao settled into a government-assigned house in a Dutch village. He only speaks Chinese. Nobody else there does. He says it was really lonely. I didn't know things would turn out like this. There's a lot of suffering you can't even express.

A kind of emptiness. Gao survived on government assistance. Unemployed, he spent time studying Dutch, riding his bike, and posting online, protesting the Chinese regime, which was now thousands of miles away. Freedom! Freedom for China! Gao was also following what other Chinese dissidents were doing in the Netherlands. Xi Jinping, get off the stage! Xi Jinping, get off the stage! Communist Party, get off the stage! in the Netherlands.

People sometimes demonstrated in Amsterdam or outside the Chinese embassy in The Hague. At the end of 2022, Gao joined a candlelight protest in The Hague's Chinatown. Afterward, as he waited for a train home, the protest organizer, a young man named Wang Jingyu, approached. Gao already knew about Wang. In just the last few weeks, Wang had been interviewed by Dutch, German, Japanese, and Slovak media. His name is Wang Jingyu.

Gao was impressed. Major media has reported a lot about him. Saying that he's been persecuted by the Chinese government. The two men, nearly a generation apart, talked for hours. Such a young person, with such clear-eyed and resolute resistance. I think it's very valuable, especially since he's in the same country as me. Gao didn't know it at the time, but his relationship with Wang would change the course of his life. Wang is the second dissident in this tale. He has an even more harrowing origin story.

Wang is 22, grew up a middle-class kid studying at an international school in Chongqing in China's southwest. He's tall with straight wispy bangs that cut across his forehead. Unlike Gao, Wang speaks English and converses easily with people from different countries. Wang first made international headlines when he was 19. There'd been a border clash between Chinese and Indian troops. China insisted that none of its soldiers had died. But writing on social media, Wang challenged that claim. And as reported in Indian news, Wang was right. China said for the first time on Friday that four Chinese soldiers died during a bloody... Speaking to NPR at the time, Wang said he couldn't stand that the government routinely misled its people. Since the founding of the Communist Party until now, the Chinese government has always been

like this, fabricating facts, and the official media turns white into black to make Chinese people live in a world full of lies. Chinese police wanted to detain Wang, but he was traveling overseas at the time and beyond their reach. Speaking here with Australian TV last year, Wang said he refused to be intimidated. Are you ever tempted to be silent to make your life easier? No, I will not. Because, you know, if I accept this, I just, you know, stop talking,

and the Chinese authority will think this plan is work, and they will use this plan to attack another Chinese dissident. So I will not do this. Like Gao, Wang also went to the Netherlands and gained asylum. He said he thought he'd be safe. But in the fall of 2022, Wang posted on X that he was receiving harassing calls and messages. It was also around this time that a human rights group revealed that China had surreptitiously opened police service stations around the world, including 30 in Europe.

China said the stations just provided services like driver's license renewal. But Wang called reporters a Chinese police station in the Netherlands had bombarded him with calls and threatened his family. They make a phone call to me. I give you three days to go back to China. Otherwise, your family or your parents have a problem. In fact, it seemed the Communist Party really had it out for Wang. He told reporters someone had also made bomb threats in his name to hotels in Europe and Canada.

This practice is called swatting. That's when someone reports a fake crime that tricks police into targeting an innocent person. It seems to have worked. Dutch police did investigate. And according to Wong, they questioned him after they received an anonymous email. It warned that Wang was planning to blow up the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

I just told some police officer, I said, it's absolutely made by Chinese authority. And the police asked me, do you need a lawyer? I said, I don't need a lawyer because I didn't do anything. Through his many interviews and claims, Wang became one of the public faces of Chinese government repression in Europe. More than 50 news organizations have quoted, mentioned or featured him. Wang Jingyu is heading to his adversary. Wang Jingyu is a political dissident based in The Hague who claims he has been harassed by people connected to this service.

His name is Wang Jingyu. Wang Jingyu, who lives in the Netherlands, has first-hand experience of this secret force intent on flexing its muscle anywhere, anytime. A few months after Wong and Gao first talked at the train station, Wang messaged him on WhatsApp. He told Gao the harassment had become so intense he could no longer stay in his apartment. Wang said he couldn't sleep. He was very depressed.

So he asked if he could come stay with me for a few days. I said where I am is remote, but it is quiet. Gao lived in a three-story house. The other bedrooms were empty as he waited for his family to come from China. They'd applied for visas to join him in the Netherlands, but were still waiting. So for the time being, Gao was happy to play host. And Wang made himself comfortable, extending his stay from days to weeks to months. And he continued to entertain reporters, even using Gao's living room for TV interviews.

A few months after Wang's arrival, Gao received alarming news. Back in China, police officers had questioned his wife, Liu, roughed her up, and seized her cell phone. Gao urged her and their children, a daughter who was 16 and a son 19, to flee the country. So they flew to Bangkok. And that's when everything went to hell. Shortly after Gao's wife arrived in Thailand, she says she received a terrifying email. It appeared to be from Dutch immigration. Here's what the email said. The airports in Berlin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen received bomb threats claiming to be from you and your son.

Therefore, you and your son's travel to the EU is legally restricted. They were shocked, frightened, and amidst the confusion, they overstayed their Thai tourist visas. As a result, a court sentenced them to two months in immigration detention. It seemed that they were being swatted, just as Wong said he had been.

Gao's son Peng had arrived in Thailand after his mother and sister, so his visa was still valid, and he's never been incarcerated. Back in the Netherlands, Gao got an even more perplexing message from that same Dutch immigration account. It said his wife and daughter had confessed to making additional bomb threats. They admitted to the Royal Thai Police that the bomb threats

sent to the embassies of EU states in Thailand were personally sent by them. They apologized for this and volunteered to return to China. Gao couldn't believe it. He said his wife and kids weren't even political. Gao was sure the Communist Party was behind the threats,

but he wondered why. Why would the party go to such lengths to target him and his family? I really can't understand the motive. It's too big a waste of resources. I'm obscure, like a nobody. Among Chinese dissidents, Gao was not that well-known. But his new friend Wang was. And in fact, Gao was getting some other strange messages

that even mentioned Wang. Once, someone claiming to be a Communist Party agent sent a private message to Gao, urging him to stop Wang from talking to reporters. But Wang kept doing interviews. Maybe, the men thought, the Chinese government had targeted Gao's family because he'd failed to stop Wang.

I think the Chinese government is treating us so badly to show its power. No matter whether you're at home or us so badly to show its power. No matter whether you're at home, abroad, you cannot escape its power. Welcome back to the Sunday Story. We've been hearing the story of Gao Zhe, a Chinese dissident living in the Netherlands. His family is trying to join him there, but they've been detained in Thailand and accused of making bomb threats. Gao and his friend Wang Jingyu suggest the Chinese government is actually behind these threats. Frank Langfitt and his reporting partner believe this could be the case, but they need proof. Here's Frank again. I was drawn to this story because I was intrigued by Wang and his claims of swatting. This seemed

like a really innovative tactic, get law enforcement in free countries to do the Communist Party's dirty work. I told Wang I was interested in reporting on the phenomenon of bomb threats, so he introduced me to Gao. The bomb threats and detention of Gao's wife and daughter made for a gripping story, and we wanted to be the first to tell it. But there was a problem. We couldn't corroborate Gao's account. Thai police and Chinese diplomats wouldn't discuss the case. We needed official documents. So Gao sent us screenshots of the emails from that Dutch government account, but he didn't include the sender's email address and refused to give it to

us, which seemed strange. Wang had been a hugely helpful source. He responded to questions at all hours of the night, and since he lived with Gao, Wang routinely sat in on our interviews and helped translate. So when we asked why they wouldn't give us the email address, Wang jumped in to explain Gao's thinking. This is a personal contact information from the immigration service. So he did get

permission first. Otherwise, the Dutch authorities will be angry because they don't want to talk to journalists. This was frustrating. Wang seemed to be serving as a gatekeeper, and I wasn't sure why. So, I decided to try to verify the emails on my own.

I forwarded one of Gao's screenshots to the Dutch Immigration press office, and then I called. At first, Dutch Immigration refused to discuss the case, citing privacy laws. I said, just tell me if the email's authentic. The press officer paused. She told me they had no record of it. We call that a forgery, I said. Yes, the official responded. At this moment, the story began to change, and I had a whole new set of questions. So, if the emails were fake,

what about the bomb threats mentioned in those emails? Did they even happen? I called police in Europe and asked about the alleged bomb threats to airports. The cops? They'd never heard of them. What the hell was going on?

Was Gao trying to trick us? But someone tricked him. We video called Gao. He was sitting in his living room on a gray couch against a bare green wall. At his side, as usual, was Wong. We told them the Dutch immigration email was fake. Gao seemed surprised and scared. For real? This document's forged? I got a lot of emails from this Dutch immigration account. Wouldn't I be accused of forging the others too? I don't have those skills. For starters, I don't understand Dutch or English.

I don't understand Dutch or English. Wang, on the other hand, sounded skeptical. Who gave the phone number to you? Could it be an imposter? In the following weeks, we didn't speak much with Wang and Gao. They didn't seem to trust us, and well, we didn't really trust them either. Then, about six weeks later, Wang wrote me privately with shocking news. German police had arrested Gao.

I couldn't believe it, but it was true. We called Gao shortly after he was released from jail and back home in the Netherlands. The story Gao told us was wild. He said one night he got an email from that same Dutch immigration account. It said that his wife and daughter had been released from Thai detention. The Dutch account told him they couldn't contact him while in transit, but it assured him they would soon be reunited. His wife and daughter were headed to Europe. His son, Pong, would follow later.

In fact, Pong had already handed over credit card details to pay for his flights. But progress was slow. The Dutch immigration account explained that the bomb threat allegations continued to trail his wife and daughter as they traveled first to Istanbul. Liel and Han are currently being temporarily held in the immigration office's detention room. Then, six days later, to Switzerland. Leo and Han are currently under criminal investigation by the Swiss federal police in Basel. Finally, it appeared as if they'd cleared their legal hurdles.

Gao's wife and daughter were on their way to Germany. The news was an enormous relief. Gao had even sent Peng a video to show how he was preparing for his wife and daughter's arrival. Look inside this fridge. I bought eggs and milk and things. It's all waiting for your mom. The next day, Gau gets the email he's been waiting for.

You need to leave this afternoon. Officials of the German Federal Police and the German Federal Intelligence Service will contact you directly. Following instructions from the Dutch immigration account, Gao took a train for several hours to a small German city. When he got off, he lit a cigarette and waited to hear from German officials on where to meet his family. Then, a man approached. When he stretched out his hand, I thought he was going to ask me for cigarettes. Instead, he grabbed me, pushed me to the ground.

After he pinned me down, I had a chance to look up. I saw four or five policemen with guns pointed at me. It was the German police, but they weren't there to take Gao to his family. Instead, they were there to take him to jail. It was only during the interrogation when I was told that someone had accused me of threatening to kill them. I was shocked. According to German police and public statements made by the accuser, here's what seems to have happened. A young man who lived in Germany,

a close associate of Wang's, told police Gao was part of a secret communist cell and that Gao had threatened to kill him. The police initially took the threat seriously. Gao knew the man in passing, but he denied threatening the guy. What's my motivation, right? I finally escaped from China and went through so much hardship. Did I escape to kill people?

A German police refused to comment on the case, but there's no evidence they charged Gao. They released him within several days, and Gao boarded a train for home. He was disoriented and distraught. It appeared Gao might yet be another victim of swatting, accused of a fake crime so police would target him, just like his family and his friend Wang. But as Gao rode the train back to the Netherlands,

he couldn't get through to Wang or his son, so he recorded a video for them explaining what had happened. My face was bruised after the police pressed me into the ground. What happened to you? I can't reach anyone. I just want to know what's going on. Were you also duped? Have you been arrested? How do I come and save you? There was no response. Wang, who had left Gao's house weeks earlier, was now ghosting him. And the Dutch immigration account? It went silent too.

Maybe they'd achieved their goal and didn't need to contact me anymore. The con was over. We'll be right back. When we left off, Gao Zhe had been persuaded to go to Germany, believing he was about to reunite with his family. Instead, he was arrested after what appears to have been another case of swatting. When German police release Gau, he heads back to the Netherlands. And he's had an epiphany. He's been conned.

He just doesn't know by whom. After months of phone calls and messages, Frank and his reporting partner decide to meet Gao in person. So we're on our way to see Gao, and we've been driving for about two and a half hours, mostly through these flat green fields, some snow on the edges, past lots of wind farms here in the Netherlands. And now we're in a small village. Little red brick homes, black roofs. We pulled up to Gao's house. The neighbor's cat was scratching at his door. Gao's even thinner and shorter than he'd appeared on screen.

He scurries about his sparsely furnished living room, playing host to us, the rare visitors. I recognize the gray couch where he sat with Wang during our many video calls. Wang and his girlfriend spent six months living here. Last August, they took off in such a rush, they left belongings behind, including duffels filled with clothing. These are Wang's slippers, Gao tells us. They're lined up along the wall, as though Wang might return any minute, even though he's been gone for months. Gao lays out more of Wang's possessions on the dining room table.

And there are a bunch of passport photos. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven SIM cards. After German police released him, Gao returned here and sank into despair. He explained in a call. I was in very poor spirits. I couldn't get out of bed. I realized that I'd been deceived, leading to a catastrophe, a huge disaster for my family. A disaster not only because of the emotional toll, but also because, Gao says, his family was tricked out of a total of $17,000, their life savings plus loans from family.

Alone and realizing he'd been wiped out, Gao finally decided to trust us. He and his son sent us their exchanges with that now infamous Dutch immigration account. We finally got to see the sender's email address. It was a ProtonMail account. Not an email from the Dutch government, but an account from an encrypted email service that anyone can use. Gau, who didn't grasp the significance of a domain name, didn't know that. But it was clear now. The Dutch immigration account was fake. The Gao sent us other emails as well,

from fake Thai airways and fake Royal Thai police accounts. There were also private messages from people claiming to be Communist Party secret agents. You can only trust our group, because no one's going to believe a word you said. My reporting partner spent weeks poring through all the communications,

more than 700 emails and months of private messages, including documents, screenshots, photos and videos in Chinese, English, Dutch and Thai. Bomb threats claiming to be from you and your son. You can run away for now, but you will regret it forever. We are cancelling the family's emergency visa. We accept all visa, Mastercard, American Express, JBC, Diners Club International, EC Euro credit cards.

What emerged was a roadmap to what the Gauss described as an elaborate long con. Sifting through the emails, we saw how the fake Dutch immigration account manipulated and tormented the family. Emails claiming they'd made bomb threats left them paralyzed with fear. The account also tricked Gauss' wife and daughter into missing a real visa appointment, paving the way for their actual detention. Then another devastating blow. The fake Dutch account convinced Gao to go to Germany, where he was arrested. And then there was the money. The family obtained credit cards, and the son handed over their details

to the fake Thai Airways account. Mysterious charges began appearing on the Gao's bills. $16 for Uber Eats in Amsterdam, $41 for a big bus tour in Berlin, $172 to Ctrip, China's largest online travel agency. The credit card company confirmed the charges to NPR. All this time, the gals said they had never used these credit cards. But they say they didn't cancel them because they thought they were necessary to get the family members to Europe.

Looking back at how this all began, with fake emails about fake bomb threats, gal realized there was one common thread. Are you ever tempted to be silent to make your life easier? No, I will not. His celebrity dissident friend. I will not do this. Who lived with him.

To put it bluntly, Wang Jingyu has been misleading me. But how to be certain? We went back through all those fake immigration emails and found evidence Wong might have written some of them. They referred to Wong 13 times and said he had a special status. One email told the gals that Wong was, quote, a national key protected person in the Netherlands. Another email referred to a Dutch official named F. Langvet. Someone had incorporated my name into this international fraud.

Who else but Wong? As we looked more closely at Gauss' credit card records, we found at least one charge went to a PayPal account named Wang Jingyu NL. Seems pretty damning, although Wang denies it's his.

We also went back through hours of old interviews and found two moments when Wang assured us the Dutch immigration email account was authentic. We had it on tape. Wang says, I want to be honest. IND.NL, which is the real domain name for Dutch immigration. But of course, the emails came from a ProtonMail account. We sent some of the fake emails to the real Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service. They were investigating who impersonated them. And we got to thinking, if Wang was behind all this,

how could anyone trust anything he'd ever said? From his claims that Chinese authorities had targeted him with harassing calls to his stories about the Communist Party swatting him with fake bomb threats in Europe. It's absolutely made by Chinese authorities. One reason people were willing to believe Wang, including us for a while, is because the Chinese Communist Party does spy on, threaten, and even abduct dissidents abroad. As long as there have been dissidents who have left repressive environments, governments have followed them across borders. Jana Gorhovskaya is a research director at Freedom House, the Washington think tank.

She says scholars call these kinds of attacks transnational repression. And she says the Communist Party runs the most sophisticated and comprehensive repression campaign in the world. China is unique among countries that perpetrate transnational repression in the global reach and the number of tactics it uses. FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed the growing problem in a speech in April. They're exporting their repression efforts and human rights abuses, targeting, threatening, harassing those who dare question their legitimacy and authority even outside of China, including right here in the United States. Wang appeared to exploit that reputation. In his dealings with the Gaos, he routinely blamed the

party for everything bad that happened to them. For instance, when the Gao family realized their credit cards were bleeding money, someone claiming to be a Chinese secret agent messaged Gao to take the blame. And Wang sent Gao a voice message to commiserate. This is so bad. Old Kami has so much money and still steals from other people. Just like the Communist Party, Wang also sowed confusion and fear. Gao Sanpeng was getting guidance from Wang on how to get out of Thailand. One time, when Peng couldn't get through to him, Wang suggested a communist agent was disrupting their calls.

The idea terrified Peng. He said he was afraid to leave his hotel room in Thailand because he thought a Chinese agent might try to poison him. The Communist Party does have this kind of dark history. It will negotiate terms with you when you're at your weakest. So I thought, if I don't comply, will I be murdered? In fairness, the party is not known for assassinating people overseas. China is not Russia.

But the Gaos believed Wang because of China's history of repression. Gao also says he trusted Wang because the news media did. Newspapers published a lot of interviews with him. We trust the mainstream media, so we trusted him. We don't speak foreign languages, so with all of his media clips, it was very easy for Wang to trick us. I initially trusted Wang for similar reasons, but Wang appeared to try to trick and manipulate me too.

As we struggled to verify the bomb threats pinned on the Gao family, Wong warned me. Another news organization was about to break the story. No journalist wants to get beat, but I hadn't finished my reporting. Then, last July, the Associated Press published the Thai bomb threat story involving the Gaos. The AP treated the fake Dutch immigration emails as authentic and said the bomb threats appeared to be part of China's increasingly sophisticated efforts to harass Chinese dissidents living overseas and their families.

On X, Wang touted the AP story to his nearly 42,000 followers. The story was republished by the Toronto Star, the Washington Times, and one of Japan's top newspapers, Asai Shimbun. We reached out to the AP recently and told them about the forgeries. Last week, the Associated Press decided to kill the story, citing the emails and saying, quote, there is uncertainty about any Chinese involvement. It was time to confront Wang face-to-face.

He'd agreed to a meeting during our trip to the Netherlands, anytime and anywhere he wrote. But after we arrived, Wong messaged us. Now I got a note from him saying, unfortunately, I'm in Germany now. I'm filming a documentary. I don't think I'll have time to go to Amsterdam. After a few hours back and forth, Wong did agree to talk, but only by phone. Hey, Frank, how are you? Good, where are you? I'm in a restaurant. Well, I mean, it's not like you're in a bar. You're in a restaurant.

Wang said he was in Germany, but who knows? The Gao family thinks that you were working behind these fake accounts, the Dutch immigration account, and that you and other people stole thousands and thousands of dollars from them. This is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And I promise I will sue all of them. You will sue all of them.

Have you ever called in a bomb threat? Ever? Never. Have you ever sent an email and made a bomb threat? This is, to be honest with you, it's ridiculous. Do you consider yourself as a fighter for human rights and democracy? Oh, this is a really big question. Well, I mean, it's actually very simple. You know, some of the stories that have been done on you,

you do come off very much as a crusader and standing up to the Communist Party. So I just want to know if you still consider yourself a fighter for human rights and democracy. No, I think I'm just a normal people. Oh, just a normal person? Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct. I don't think I'm an activist or a human rights defender. This is not my... You're not an activist?

I don't think so, but this is not my work. Anti-Chinese authorities is not your work? I mean, I don't need to use this to make money or... Oh, I didn't ask anything about you using it to make money. Yeah, I understand, but I just want to say... Oh, wow. I just want to say... I just want to say... Our interview went on like this for nearly an hour and 20 minutes. Wong appeared to disavow the public persona he'd spent years carefully crafting.

And he denied every accusation. But earlier this year, in another interview with NPR, Wong changed his story. He acknowledged the Dutch immigration account was fake and the Gaos had been conned, but continued to insist he had nothing to do with it. We weren't the only people questioning Wang. Some human rights activists in Europe

have raised alarms about him for a long time. Lin Shengliang is a Chinese dissident who lives outside the Hague. He's fooled a lot of media. He makes full use of the information gap to create chaos and deceive reporters into trusting him. Lin doesn't think Wang works for the Communist Party, but he says Wang, knowingly or not, has done its bidding by spreading enough doubt and fear among dissidents that some don't want to participate in protests. He is indirectly helping the Chinese Communist Party maintain stability. For example, if I want to hold a big event now, people won't come out. Yaqiao Wang,

who's not related to Wang Jingyu, is China Research Director at Freedom House. She says the Communist Party may have targeted Wang in the past, but emphasizes she no longer trusts him as a source of information. And she says

some of his claims of rep oppression risk undermining genuine accounts. My experience is that most people who are persecuted, they tell their truth. And when there's one person who's spreading false information, it makes the entire community less trusted by the public. How do you feel about somebody like this who does these things? So frustrated, especially because the suffering is so real, and then one person kind of spoil it. She says Chinese dissidents in democratic countries serve a purpose.

They can speak out and highlight China's human rights abuses, but credibility is everything. Why did you decide to talk to me? serve a purpose. They can speak out and highlight China's human rights abuses. But credibility is everything. Why did you decide to talk to me? Well, I came to this field to tell the truth. And this is part of the truth. What is the truth about Wang? He's smart.

Gao says he was about to figure out he'd been conned. Then, the Dutch immigration account lured him to his arrest in Germany. Afterwards, Wang used Gao's arrest to try to discredit him. What drives Wang is harder to say. Wang's ex-fee offers a clue. It's a stream of grievances against the party and claims of persecution in which Wang is both hero and victim. Wang is definitely a person who likes attention. Jan Stremel is a German reporter who's covered Wang.

He likes to surround himself with other dissidents who might be a little more helpless in Europe than him because they don't speak English. He acts like the leader of the group. Streml also describes Wang as nervous, stressed, and troubled. I spent many, many days with Wang, and he ended up telling me about his family. He ended up crying. He ended up being very vulnerable to me.

So go ahead. Last month, Gao's family finally arrived in the Netherlands. His wife, Liu, and daughter had spent nearly four months in detention in Thailand. In this video Gao sent of their arrival, he's wearing aviator sunglasses in the summer sun, his arms around his wife and daughter. He's laughing. Gao's daughter brushes her hair from her face for the camera.

In a year of interviews, it was the first time I'd seen any of them smile. Later, we called Gao and Liu at Gao's home in the Dutch countryside to see how the family was settling in. Liu likes the Netherlands a lot more than Bangkok. It feels very quiet here, and the people are very welcoming. They will say hello to everyone, regardless of whether they know each other. But the couple says the ordeal has left deep scars, especially for their son Peng. Along with his father, Peng had also handed over credit card details. He blames himself for the loss of the family's savings.

Liu says beginning in Thailand, he grew distrustful and quick to anger. He's very down. Back in Thailand, he kept to himself in his room and wouldn't come out. It's been a year and he hasn't recovered. Gao feels responsible because he told his son to trust Wang. I know this is all my fault. So, of course, I feel guilty. I keep trying to comfort him.

But it wasn't all Gao. China does target dissidents. The media elevated Wang. And Wang seemed like a friend. Of course I trusted Wang. After all, he was living with me. I went to the police department with him to report communist harassment. In this situation, who would you believe? This episode was produced by Abby Wendell, Noah Caldwell, and Monica Estatieva. It was edited by Jenny Schmidt, Barry Hardiman, and Robert Little. Research by Barbara Van Workum. Data reporting by Nick McMillan.

Engineering by James Willits. Voiceovers by Tony Cavan, Hazel Feldstein, Julia Langfitt, Kai McNamee, Ellen Van Mers, Matt Ozook, Andy Cottrell, and Jerome Sokolofsky. Special thanks to Emily Fang, Vincent Nee, Auen Zhao, Esme Nicholson, and Fatima Al-Khassab. Additional thanks to NPR's Managing Editor of Standards and Practices, Tony Cavan, and to Micah Ratner for legal support. Our Supervising Senior Producer is Liana Simstrom, and Irene Noguchi is our Executive Producer.

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.