Chinese Nationals Illegally in US Arrested in East Texas for Money Laundering – Texas

(The Center Square) – A district attorney from rural East Texas described how the border crisis is impacting her community after two Chinese nationals were arrested on money laundering charges.

Their arrest was not the first time “we have encountered Chinese nationals on the highway engaging in illegal activity. We had a major seizure about 11 months ago where we took half a million dollars from two Chinese nationals,” Van Zandt County District Attorney Tonda Curry said at a news conference.

The recent arrests were the first involving gold bars, she said. “Their story started when they left China and came here to rob Americans. It now ends with us taking $250,000 worth of gold from their organization.”

Last Thursday, while conducting traffic enforcement along I-20, Sergeant Charlie Hughes of the Wills Point Police Department, a K-9 handler, stopped two Chinese nationals in a white Chevy Malibu with Michigan plates for a traffic violation.

Weijian Chen, 25, and Wenqiang Lin, 46, didn’t speak English and Hughes used a phone translation app to communicate. Lin, who rented the car, agreed to a search and Hughes’ decorated K-9 Hania found a bag full of gold bars worth nearly $300,000 under the driver’s seat.

Both Chen and Lin said they did not know who the bag of gold belonged to. They were arrested. “Based on my training, I know it is highly unlikely that Lin or Chen could have gotten the gold through the Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint at the airport without filing a United States Currency Transaction Report,” Hughes said.

Their claims and suspicious activities paled in comparison, authorities said, as did other arrests made by Operation Lone Star agents, The Center Square first reported.

Hughes contacted Homeland Security and learned that the Chinese men had entered California illegally last September and December. Instead of detaining them or processing them for deportation, Border Patrol agents released them and gave them a notice to appear before an immigration judge.

Investigators found that Chen left China last September, flying from Hong Kong to Turkey and then on to Mexico. Upon arriving in Mexico, he traveled on foot to Tecate, California, where he illegally entered the U.S. with a large group of mostly military-age Chinese men.

Last December, Chen also entered California illegally, was arrested by Border Patrol, “and although he attempted to enter illegally, he was allowed to enter under the policy of our current administration,” Curry said. He was also given an NTA, as was Lin.

Both men are currently being held in the Van Zandt County Jail.

They claimed to be “poor immigrants who had nothing,” Curry said, but “left Los Angeles on a plane and flew to Atlanta, they said, to play, for vacation.”

When they arrived in Atlanta, they rented a car and were stopped by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Interdiction Unit for a traffic violation. The officer’s narcotics dog searched the vehicle and found nothing. The officer then followed their car and contacted the rental company. They both had registered driver’s licenses, from California and Hawaii.

They returned to the rental company, rented another vehicle and drove to Marietta, Georgia, “an area that local law enforcement knows is controlled by the cartel, by people who prey on American citizens who are selling drugs,” Curry said.

They left Marietta, drove south to Jacksonville, Florida, where they stayed for about two hours, then headed north where they were intercepted on Interstate 20 toward Dallas and “probably back to LA where the car was to be turned in,” she said. “Those are the types of people who come in at our southern border … who come here and help organizations that exploit American citizens.”

Curry also questioned whether the men had made any statements to Border Patrol, saying they appeared to have entered the U.S. illegally to engage in organized crime, possibly involving cartels, gangs, drug trafficking and money laundering.

“If you come here and within a year you are engaged in criminal activities, you will never be able to convince me that you came with good intentions,” she said.

Van Zandt County is one of 55 counties whose leaders have announced an invasion, The Center Square reported exclusively.

The Biden administration has seen the most Chinese nationals enter the U.S. illegally, nearly 160,000. Hundreds of them have infiltrated U.S. military bases, according to The Center Square.

Their arrest “highlights and is a great example of the failure of the Biden-Harris administration’s policies and our southern border. If you don’t think the chaos at the border doesn’t impact rural East Texas, this arrest is a prime example of it,” said state Rep. Jill Dutton, a Republican who represents the area. “The Biden-Harris administration’s failed border policies are hurting Americans. If you think this problem is limited to just border cities, think again.”