US officials enter shuttered Chinese consulate in Houston

US federal agents and local law enforcement entered the Chinese consulate compound in Houston Friday afternoon following Tuesday's order to close the diplomatic facility after US officials alleged it was part of a larger Chinese espionage effort using diplomatic facilities around the US, CNN reports.

A series of black SUVs, trucks, two white vans and a locksmith's van entered the property as a crowd of observers and news cameras observed from the edge of the diplomatic compound.

US officials speaking to reporters Friday said the consulate had been implicated in a fraud investigation at a Texas research institution and that Chinese consulate officials, "were directly involved in communications with researchers and guided them on what information to collect."

The activities of consulate officials in Houston "are a microcosm, we believe, of a broader network of individuals in more than 25 cities that network is supported through the consulates here," a US Justice Department official said Friday. "Consulates have been giving individuals in that network guidance on how to evade [and] obstruct our investigation. And you can infer from that the ability to task that [a] network of associates nationwide."

Reuters reports that a group of men accompanied by a U.S. State Department official were seen forcing open a door at the Chinese consulate in Houston on Friday, shortly after a U.S. government closure order for the mission took effect at 4 p.m. local time, Reuters reports.

The group included a man who appeared to be the State Department’s top official for foreign missions, Cliff Seagroves. The group did not respond when asked who they were by reporters and a State Department spokesperson declined to answer questions about Seagroves or the group’s activity at the consulate.