Thread: Police raid Great Wall, arrest three on immigration charges

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Police raid Great Wall, arrest three on immigration charges

By Rick Charmoli and Dale Killingbeck, Cadillac News
DALE KILLINGBECK | CADILLAC NEWS
The Great Wall Chinese restaurant in Lakeland Square Plaza was closed on Thursday following a police raid on Wednesday.
CADILLAC - The owner and two employees of a Haring Township restaurant face possible deportation as a result of police raids on Chinese restaurants around the state.

Officers from the Michigan State Police, Cadillac Police and Wexford County Sheriff's Department raided the Great Wall Chinese restaurant in Lakeland Square Plaza at 11 a.m. Wednesday as part of a coordinated 12-county effort to seize tax records.

Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Jeff Herweyer said 38 search warrants were issued statewide in connection with a tax-evasion violation probe.

The warrants were issued in 12 counties and targeted 17 restaurants and 21 nearby residences where it was suspected undocumented workers, who had been trafficked into Michigan to work, were being housed.

The investigation into the Great Wall Chinese restaurant began in December, Herweyer said.

As a result of the investigation, five search warrants were issued targeting the restaurant, the owner Zhen Chao Guo's home, a large unattached garage/barn building next to the home and two local banks.

"It started out small and once we started looking into it, it kept snowballing. More and more restaurants are tied together and this is the tip of the iceberg," Herweyer said. "It goes into other states."

Herweyer said Guo had ties to New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Nevada and California. Guo also was associated with restaurants in Mount Pleasant, Alma, Big Rapids and Greenville.

"That's why we had numerous police agencies in 12 counties serving warrants. It all deals with Chinese restaurants, tax evasion with the state and immigration violations," Herweyer said. "Basically slave labor. They smuggle them in the states and they are working off the right to come to the United States."

Herweyer said the raids were staged simultaneously because of the connections between many of the restaurants.

"They are very well connected to each other," he said. "(Guo) owns as many as four or five other restaurants. This particular restaurant was very busy."

In a release issued by Michigan State Police, investigators also suspected the restaurants may have cheated the state and federal government out of several million dollars in sales, unemployment and used taxes. It also said the owners, like Guo, were only claiming approximately one-third of their income with a portion of the proceeds being sent out of the country.

Complicating the investigation are the many Chinese documents seized during the raids.

"A lot of evidence is written in Chinese," Herweyer said. The documents seized in Haring Township and others areas of the state will be turned over to the Michigan Department of Treasury to translate and process for possible prosecution of tax evasion or other charges in counties where the raids occurred.

Immigration officials initially were not part of the investigation, Herweyer said.

"It was mainly a state operation. Immigration had to jump on board when the possibility of so many illegal aliens were here," he said.

ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said 13 people statewide were arrested for outstanding final orders of deportation and four others were arrested on administrative immigration charges.

Both Guo, 40, and Bao Zhen Lin, 22, who were arrested in the Cadillac raid, had final orders of deportation against them. Rusnok said he did not have information on the third person taken in Cadillac.

"They have warrants of deportation," he said. "They will be processed for removal to their countries."

Herweyer said the other two oriental restaurants in Cadillac were not part of the investigation.

At China One King Buffet, manager Ming Huang said he never met Guo, but knew of him.

"I saw the boss a couple of times," he said. Huang said he did not know about the undocumented workers.

"I was unaware of that," he said.

Within Lakeland Square Plaza, where the restaurant is located, other store employees within the plaza said they seldom saw the restaurant workers outside.

"They usually always stayed inside the restaurant," said Theresa King, manager of Bath and Body Works. Her store sits next to the restaurant. "A lot of times if they'd see us they would run inside the store."

King said the restaurant had a lot of late deliveries and she believes some of the workers slept at the restaurant.

"It's just like they'd never leave," she said.

At Guo's Haring Township home, his wife Tang Kai Yan said she did not know her husband's status following his arrest. She said he had been in the country about 10 years. Yan said she and Guo have two children.

Inside the door of the two-story home Thursday afternoon, three other workers could be seen. An unattached two-story garage stood to the north of the home and there was an above-ground swimming pool in the south portion of the yard.

Records from the Wexford County Equalization Department show the home, valued at $182,000, is owned by Guo and his wife.

Only Abel Marcial, who said he has worked at the restaurant for two years as a cook, fully understood a reporter's questions.

"Everybody's surprised," he said, describing the police raid. "They came in the front door and the back door."

Yan said through Marcial that she wanted to reopen the restaurant today.

Herweyer said the raids did not close restaurants down, but obviously puts the operators on notice.

"They know they all are being watched," he said. Information about other worker identities and status has been turned over to ICE.

Marcial said the raids definitely surprised workers.

"Right now people are scared," Marcial said. "They don't know what is going to happen."

news@cadillacnews.com | 775-NEWS (6397)

Well, all these people have outstanding warrants for deportation, tax evasion charges, and hiring illegal aliens. The resturant owners should prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The rest, DEPORT! Send them back and make sure they stay where they came from.