In a breaking announcement from the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Fangzheng Wang, a 24-year-old Chinese national was indicted along with eight others in a bust which targeted a transnational fraud and money laundering scheme. ICE investigators discovered 300 victims across 37 states who were defrauded of over $5 million. According to a document from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the conspirators owned a bank account that is suspected of having laundered an additional $16 million in fraudulent funds.
For context, Trump has made immigration reform a major part of his political platform and often references the crime that comes with unchecked immigration. Often, Trump has used illegal immigrant criminals as the reason for his massive immigration crackdown.
In any case, the DOJ document, posted on March 30, 2025, outlined the details of the case. The document read, “The object of the conspiracy was for defendants SONG, LIU, LI, X. SUN, WANG, HO, XIN, and C. SUN, and their co-conspirators to unlawfully enrich themselves by obtaining cash, cryptocurrency, wire transfers, and gold from victims.”
Explaining how these callous criminal targeted their victims, the DOJ wrote, “[Victims] were defrauded through misrepresentations, including, but not limited to, statements that their bank accounts and assets had been compromised by fraudulent transactions; that their bank accounts and assets were subject to garnishment by the government because the victims were under investigation for criminal activity.:”
The fraudsters would convince their victims that, “To protect their assets and to avoid garnishment, the victims needed to withdraw funds from their bank accounts and liquidate their assets and obtain cash, currency, and gold; and … to a courier or government representative, the funds from their cash, cryptocurrency, and gold would be held in a secure location, would be protected, and would not be subject to garnishment.”
Providing more context, the document stated, “It was further part of the conspiracy that during phone calls and text message exchanges with the victims, members of the conspiracy would add other members of the conspiracy who would falsely present themselves as employees and representatives of banking institutions, government agencies, and other companies, including Apple, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and PayPal.”
Laying out the charges, the DOJ declared, “[The suspects] did knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully combine, conspire, and agree with to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, that is, to knowingly and with intent to defraud, devise and intend to devise a scheme to defraud and to obtain money from others by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, knowing that they were false and fraudulent when made, and for the purpose of executing such scheme to defraud and to obtain money, caused the transmission of wire communications in interstate and foreign commerce.
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Explaining the punishment for the crime, the document stated that their assets would be forfeited to compensate the victims. The document states, “If any of the above-described forfeitable property, as a result of any act or omission of the defendant, cannot be located upon the exercise of due diligence, has been transferred, sold to, or deposited with a third party, has been placed beyond the jurisdiction of the court, has been substantially diminished in value, or has been commingled with other property which cannot be divided without difficulty, it is the intent of the United States, pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 853(p), as incorporated by 28 U.S.C. § 2461(c), to seek forfeiture of any other property of said defendants up to the value of the forfeitable property described above.”