Posted on 08/01/2022 10:57:51 AM PDT by DFG
A family-owned restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown allegedly served as the headquarters of international money laundering and transmitting schemes that reaped tens of millions of dollars in proceeds from drug trafficking and the resale of Apple products.
Eight individuals have been indicted for their alleged roles in the schemes which were partly run at China Gourmet, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Former spouses Shi Rong Zhang, 48, and Qiu Mei Zeng, 47, co-own the restaurant.
Both Zhang and Zeng have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and unlicensed money transmitting. Zhang’s Hanover-based electronics store, Wonderful Electronics, has also been used as a front for illicit transactions, as per court documents.
Vincent Feng, 32; Da Zeng, 30; Wei Qing Zeng, 58; Xian Rong Zeng, 45 and Qiu Fang Zeng, 59, face the same charges. Additionally, Chengzou Liu, 36, was indicted on conspiracy to commit money laundering and possession with intent to distribute marijuana.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The giveaway was that their egg foo was middle aged.
(At least I can be reasonably sure the Chinese take-out I frequent is not like this: they have been busy all the time for the last 20 years at least, and both their children went to our Lutheran school. I just wish their rice was koshihikari (Japanese), but you can’t have everything.)
If you ever go to Boston the North End is the Italian section.
There are a lot of great restaurants and bakeries/coffee shops.
Many of them only take cash. No credit cards, venmo or debit cards. Those are money laundering operations.
Up here in Nashua there used to be a Chinese restaurant that had a gambling hall in the basement. I never knew about it when it was open. Although, I ate lunch there many times($6.99 buffet). Apparently, all the off duty Nashua cops knew all about it and hung out there. It was one of the places where you had to knock on the door and know the password to get in. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner”
That reads like an aluminum pot tumbling down a flight of stairs.
The Mafia used to launder money thru Mom & Pop pizzerias. ....probably still do.................
Was Sum Ting Wong there?
Shocking that foreign nationals would even think to use a restaurant to launder money.
That is the domain of the Italians, at least in Boston. The cops probably got an anonymous tip somewhere along the line.
In most parts of Texas the Albanians own the “Italian” restaurants, and based on what I know of Albanian culture, I suspect that they don’t report their cash tips ... and then some.
There was an excellent noodle house in Southlake Texas that was closed when one of the owners was found to be laundering income from a massage parlor in Dallas.
While the noodles were really good, I never experienced THAT kind of a happy ending.
The DOJ actually caught someone committing a crime? Miracle!
Did the DOJ have a ticket?
This is from the article I posted above:
“One of the biggest busts in the case came in March when agents seized more than $250,000 of suspected marijuana proceeds being transported from New York to China Gourmet, according to officials. FBI agents said the cash was found stashed under piles of frozen meat product.”
This sounds similar to a scene out of the TV show “Breaking Bad”. Substitute “frozen meat product” for chicken and it is straight out of Breaking Bad.
If I were King of America, I would tase the Squad, then frogwalk them to an unairconditioned van and book them.
Restaurants typically have large cash deposits. If the owner adds 20% or 30% to the cash from other source, who would know? If you make the cash deposit $5000 instead of $4000 all year, you’ve legalized $300K in illegal profits.
https://www.chinatown-bus.org/
Gives a whole new meaning to Fortune Cookies.
We had another incident regarding the local Chinese restaurant here in Nashua about twenty years back. The guy who owned the restaurant came to work that day at 11am. Nobody was there. He went down the street to the house where all his workers lived.
He owned this house that all his employees lived in.
He found them tied up.
Apparently, non of these Chinese immigrants believed in banks. They literally kept their money in cash under the mattress so to speak. An Asian gang came up from the Chinatown section in Boston and had robbed them during the middle of the night.
Supposedly, they had taken well over $20K in cash.
Confucius say man who laundry money come out in the wash.
Taxman for PRES!
TAXAGA
under piles of frozen meat product.”
= =
Is that really ‘bugs’?
tastes like chicken
Maybe...but how was the hui guo rou?
“Everything in a Chinese restaurant takes 10 minutes.”
You laugh. Call in to our favorite Chinese takeout...every order, every time...”Be here 10 minute.”
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