Chinese national charged with hiring, housing illegal workers
U.S. seizes businessman's assets
Friday, February 22, 2008
By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Federal prosecutors Wednesday filed civil forfeiture papers against several McKees Rocks companies owned by an illegal alien from China who is charged with employing other illegals to work in his warehouse and deliver food to Chinese restaurants throughout the region.

The U.S. attorney's office moved to forfeit nearly $400,000, a Mercedes- Benz, computers and other property seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in raids last fall at New Chinatown Trading on Island Avenue.

The company is owned by Bao Ping Zheng, 39, of Ohio Township, a Chinese national who was charged last month in federal court with knowingly hiring other illegals from a New York agency to work in his warehouse and for a related company, NBC Trucking.

A third firm, New Chinatown Realty, is housed in the same building at 1300 Island Ave.

Agents said Mr. Zheng admitted that he hired illegals and paid them cash without reporting their income.

The president of New Chinatown, identified in state Corporation Bureau records and federal court documents as Song Zhong Chen, is also under investigation but has not been charged.

According to court filings, immigration and U.S. Department of Labor agents conducted their first search warrant at the company Sept. 27 and seized $138,000, records and computer equipment.

During the raid, agents discovered several illegal aliens living in the warehouse, including Guang Long Zhang, whom they found sleeping in an old office that had been converted into a bedroom for him and three other men. He said he had worked for Mr. Zheng for five years, although state employment records made no mention of him or the other workers found on the premises.

On Oct. 2, agents returned and seized the Mercedes and money from several New Chinatown bank accounts maintained at Parkvale Bank.

The following month, agents interviewed Mr. Zheng, who admitted he was in the United States illegally and had hired the aliens because he couldn't find enough legal workers.

According to an immigration office affidavit, he also said Allegheny County officials had cited him in 2000 for quartering his employees in his warehouse, so he put them up in houses on Raymond and Robinson streets. When his business continued to grow, however, the workers moved back into the warehouse.

Mr. Zheng, who is charged by criminal complaint, is being held in federal custody pending indictment by a grand jury later this month.

Mr. Zhang, his employee, who came to America in 2002, was scheduled to be deported to China. But immigration officials have detained him temporarily as a material witness in the case against his bosses.

A woman who answered the phone at New Chinatown yesterday said the company is still in business but no one there would comment on the case.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08053/859493-57.stm