May 21, 1999

MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FUJIANESE HEROIN RING SMASHED WITH CONVICTION OF FOUR

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced the conviction of the ringleaders of a Fujianese heroin and alien smuggling gang on charges of selling heroin worth 2.5 million dollars on the street to undercover investigators in 1995 and 1996.

District Attorney Brown said, "The year before the defendants were arrested federal law enforcement officials seized 818 pounds of heroin from various locations in the Northeast. Of the 818 pounds, 777 pounds -- almost 95% -- were seized at JFK Airport. In addition, vessels bringing illegal aliens to this country often are found to be carrying illegal drugs -- particularly heroin -- as well. An example of this is the Golden Venture, which ran aground off the Rockaways in 1993. The ship had carried hundreds of Asian immigrants to our shores illegally, and under the most appalling conditions, is believed to have had large quantities of heroin tossed overboard when first interdicted by the United States Coast Guard.

"From these facts," District Attorney Brown continued, "we had concluded that there was a link between smuggling heroin and smuggling aliens that would account in part for the substantial quantities of heroin coming into this country from Asia. I believe that this case confirms the existence of that link. Alien smugglers frequently have access to large amounts of heroin and are involved in distributing it in this country.

"In addition," District Attorney Brown said, "this is one of the few instances where we have successfully penetrated a Fujianese crime ring. Factors including the language barrier have traditionally created impediments to the conviction of Asian crime rings. Through the efforts of our office's Narcotics Investigations Bureau and a team of New York City detectives and Drug Enforcement Administration investigators, this ring's activities have been stopped. The word should go out to drug traffickers, kidnappers and other criminals who count on cultural and language differences to avoid detection that law enforcement is no longer handicapped by these differences."

The District Attorney said that according to trial testimony the ring was headed by Kong Xin Wong, 40, who operated the Xin Wei Restaurant at 6669 Broadway, the Bronx. Yat Tang Ng, 49, who owned and operated a restaurant in Brooklyn, was the ring's lieutenant. During the course of the investigation, the defendants made several sales of heroin to undercover detectives. Some of the sales took place in Ng's restaurant, the Silver Star Kitchen, in Brooklyn.

According to the trial testimony, from March 1995 to March 1996, the principals, Wong and Ng, and two restaurant workers Beng Bun Zheng, 38, and Zhi Qiang Chen, 35, sold and distributed high quality Asian heroin in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Undercover detectives received substantial discounts on the price of heroin in exchange for forged passports which were intended for the smuggling in of aliens.

Hundreds of wiretaps outlined the details of the organization. Videotapes showed drug sales transactions with all of the defendants. Conversations among the defendants used three different Chinese dialects: Fujianese, Cantonese and Mandarin.

Defendants Wong and Ng face minimum sentences of 15 years to life. Sentencing for defendant Wong will occur on June 17th; Ng will be sentenced on June 18th. Defendants Zheng and Chen face sentences of 8 to 25 years and will be sentenced on June 16th and July 28th respectively. All defendants will be sentenced in front of Judge William Erlbaum in part K4.

The investigation was carried out jointly by New York City Police Department detectives assigned to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) team and the Narcotics Investigations Bureau of the Queens District Attorney's Office. Executive Assistant District Attorney Robert D. Alexander supervised the overall investigation.

The HIDTA team that carried out the investigation is under the overall command of Deputy Inspector John Reagan of the NYPD's Organized Crime Investigations Division. Capt. Richard Valentine, Lt. David Chong, Sgt. William Phillips and Detectives David Huang, Harry Cheng, Joseph Longo, Jerry Ng, William Lavasseur, Doug Schneider and Chuck Wing Tsang arrested the defendants.

District Attorney Brown acknowledged the assistance of the New York State Police, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Canada Police Department in the investigation.

Assistant District Attorney Wilbert J. LeMelle, Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Attorney's Narcotics Investigations Bureau, and ADA Joseph Brogan, were in charge of the prosecution under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Peter A. Crusco.

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