NEW YORK — Brooklyn federal prosecutors Monday arrested and charged two men with operating an “undeclared overseas police station” in lower Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese government.

Prosecutors charged the men, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, with conspiring to act as agents of China as well as obstructing justice by deleting their communications with an official for China’s Ministry of Public Security.

Last year, the human rights group Safeguard Defenders accused China of operating more than 100 overseas police outposts in numerous foreign countries.