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Orange County Man Sentenced For Chinese Human Smuggling

A Fountain Valley man was sentenced to 63 months in prison today for his role in an elaborate series of schemes to smuggle illegal aliens from China into the United States through Southern California, charging the aliens as much as $60,000 each.

Claud Wei, 44, was sentenced here this morning by U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna on one count of conspiracy to transport, harbor and conceal illegal aliens. The sentence includes an enhancement based on evidence that Wei frequently locked the smuggled aliens inside an office he maintained at the Los Caballeros Racquet and Sports Club in Fountain Valley.

Wei, his sister Grace Wei Joseph, and Jason Kaiser, pleaded guilty in 2004 to charges stemming from their involvement in the human smuggling scheme uncovered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to affidavits filed in the case, the defendants and their associates relied on a variety of methods, including counterfeit documents, bribes, visa fraud, and identity theft to bring illegal aliens from China into the United States, beginning as far back as 1998.

“This organization was using Orange County as a base of operations to smuggle aliens into the United States from halfway around the world,” said Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles. “Schemes like this undermine the integrity of our nation's legal immigration system and put our country's security at risk. When people arrive here with false documents or assumed identities, we don't know who they are or what their motives might be.” Read more at ice.gov
 

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