By Cooper Smith
A Roslyn Heights man was sentenced to 20 months in prison for serving as an illegal agent with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including his involvement with a scheme called “Operation Fox Hunt,” in which he attempted to repatriate a U.S. resident through threats, harassment and coercion of the resident and his family members.
The indictment also charges Quanzhong An and his wife with conspiring with unnamed individuals to execute a money laundering scheme in which the two wired millions of dollars from China to the United States since 2016 in violation of Chinese capital flight regulations of an imposed annual per-person limit of $50,000 for “total foreign exchange settlement.”
An, 58, became involved in the repatriation scheme in October 2017, when he visited the Long Island home of the resident’s son unannounced in an attempt to find the resident, but could not find him. He returned the following year with the resident’s nephew and Weidong Yuan, who traveled with their wives from China to Chicago after being denied visas to travel alone.
Despite plans to go from Chicago to Hawaii, the two men left their wives and headed to New York to meet with An and his wife while returning to the resident’s son’s home. Following another unsuccessful visit, they returned the next day being caught on surveillance cameras looking inside windows, attempting to open doors, taking photographs and looking through the mail with Yuan leaving a letter instructing the son to contact himself or An’s wife with the two also attempting to reach him on the phone.
A few days later, the resident’s son and nephew met at a Queens restaurant where the nephew said he was pressured into traveling to the United States to track down the resident and advised the resident’s son to cooperate with Yuan. As Yuan entered the restaurant he told the resident’s son that he may not be affected because he lives in the United States but his fathers return to China would “make a difference for the family members [he] still [had]” in China.
Threats like this continued over the years with the PRC stopping the resident’s daughter at a train station in August 2019 to tell her that the government was “very serious” about repatriating fugitives abroad and had a “clear picture” of the resident and his family’s circumstances.
Following a call in June 2022, An organized a call with himself, the resident’s son and Tian Peng, who claimed to have a very good relationship with An while implying more threats against the U.S. Resident and his family but noting his return to China would not cause detainment or be forced to surrender assets. The U.S. Resident’s son promised to consult with his father and respond to An.
In August, 2022, the U.S. Resident’s son and An met again in Queens with An giving him the phone number of a Canadian victim who also returned to China to try and give the U.S. Resident insurance that he would not be harmed. The Canadian victim stated on a call later that month stated he was neither detained nor mistreated when he returned to China.
At the sentencing on March 18, U.S. District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the Eastern District of New York acknowledged An’s participation in other criminal acts noting he perpetrated bank fraud and a money laundering scheme to defraud U.S. financial institutions. An’s role included converting millions of dollars from the PRC into the United States while intentionally misleading U.S. financial institutions about the origin and purpose of the funds.
In addition to his sentence, An must pay a financial penalty of approximately $5 million, including approximately $1.3 million in restitution to the resident and his family, as well as a $50,000 fine. An was charged in October 2022 and pleaded guilty in May 2024.