At least one restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown had a scandalous secret menu, in keeping with a current federal indictment — a multi-state cash laundering operation.
A federal grand jury in Boston indicted eight alleged members of the conspiracy that the feds — which investigated it beneath the moniker “Operation Good Fortune” — say funneled tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in drug cash and extra in a present card fraud scheme.
“Drug trafficking and money laundering go hand in hand,” mentioned Joseph Bonavolonta, the particular agent in control of the FBI’s Boston workplace, “and this crew is accused of using their family-owned restaurant in Chinatown as a front for an elaborate, international money laundering scheme and money transmitting business in which they conducted tens of millions of dollars in off the books transactions to circumvent our country’s laws, and hide the source of their income.”
The case facilities round China Gourmet, a small restaurant in a Tyler Street constructing, co-owned by Qiu Mei Zeng, 47, of Quincy, and her ex-husband Shi Rong Zhang, 48, of Windham, N.H., the latter of whom additionally owns the Hanover-based Wonderful Electronics.
The feds outlined a case throughout a 101-page affidavit that alleges the pair used these seemingly official companies as a entrance for a significant marijuana distribution operation run by Chengzou Liu, 36, of Braintree. While hashish is authorized in Massachusetts, it has not been legalized on the federal degree.
Liu would allegedly cease into the restaurant and ship massive quantities of drug income, often in extra of $30,000.
The quantities had been typically a lot larger, like in March — in the course of the months-long wiretap federal investigation — when brokers allegedly seized greater than $250,000 in marijuana proceeds that had been hidden beneath packaged frozen meat merchandise being delivered by alleged courier Wei Qing Zeng, 58, of Quincy, from New York to China Gourmet.
The feds contend that Zeng and Zhang labored with numerous co-conspirators — which additionally embody members of the family Xian Rong Zeng, 45, of Hanover; and Qiu Fang Zeng, 59, of Windham, N.H. — to launder the cash in a sophisticated wire switch scheme.
In this scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s workplace alleges in an announcement, the defendants would take drug cash in Boston and New York after which switch an equal worth of Chinese foreign money — minus their charge — to the traffickers’ financial institution accounts. The authentic proceeds would then be bought at a reduced trade fee to others within the United States.
The authorities additional alleges that most of the defendants additionally operated a posh scheme through which they used stolen or pretend present playing cards to buy Apple merchandise and shipped them worldwide for revenue.
Also indicted had been Vincent Feng, 32, of Quincy and Da Zeng, 30, of Massachusetts.
“Without money, there is no drug trade,” wrote Rachael Rollins, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, in an announcement. “By eliminating the means by which drug suppliers clean their illicit proceeds, we cut off the life blood of their operations: money. In doing so, we help significantly limit the flow of drugs trafficked in our communities.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”