A California estate agent accused of acting as an unregistered Chinese agent had links to people connected to alleged criminal operations involving money laundering, forced labour and online fraud, court records indicate.
Wanying “Heather” Zhang, 34, of Irvine, was charged by the FBI last week after she was allegedly caught surveilling the son of Taiwan’s president in Seattle in 2025. She was travelling with Fatai Miao, 54, whom investigators have also linked to individuals involved in alleged criminal enterprises.
The connections offer an insight into the network surrounding Zhang, whom US federal agents allege spent years carrying out intelligence work on American soil for the Chinese government.
Links to alleged money-laundering operation
Miao is the registered agent and organiser of Yuanjin Development & Construction LLC, a company registered at a five-bedroom, £3.5 million home in Irvine. Prosecutors have alleged that the property was used as a “stash house” by a Chinese money-laundering organisation said to have worked with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Miao has not been charged with an offence and was not named in the 2023 criminal complaint concerning the alleged operation.
According to an affidavit, a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer saw a member of an alleged money-laundering organisation leave a red, medium-sized weighted bag at the property on 1 March 2023.
The officer said he believed the man had collected and delivered US currency that represented the proceeds of illicit activity. The affidavit described several similar cash drops at properties across Los Angeles and Orange counties.
The Justice Department alleged that the wider organisation operated an unlicensed currency exchange to launder millions of dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel. An indictment filed in April 2024 included photographs of seized cash and large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine.
A federal prosecutor later claimed at Zhang’s second court hearing that she had also operated an “unlicensed currency exchange”, with $190,000 in profits transferred to a Chinese bank account. The government did not publicly link that allegation to the cartel investigation in court filings concerning Zhang.
Miao flew to China on a one-way ticket last month, prosecutors said, shortly before FBI agents carried out a search at his Irvine home. His son said Miao remained in China and did not wish to comment, adding that he did not believe his father knew about alleged organised-crime links to the property.
Connections to alleged Cambodian scam network
Miao’s business partner in Yuanjin Development, Cheng Zhang, is also a business partner of Chen Sokly, whom US prosecutors describe as an alleged enforcer for the Cambodia-based Prince Group.
Big Bow LLC, a California corporation, is managed by Cheng Zhang and M Capital Global California LLC. The latter is controlled by Sokly, whom court records identify as “Co-Conspirator-2” in an indictment against Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi.
US prosecutors have accused the Prince Group of running online scams worth at least $15 billion against Americans, using workers in at least 10 alleged forced-labour compounds in Cambodia.
An indictment described the organisation as one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organisations. It alleged that migrant workers were lured to Cambodia with promises of employment before being forced to carry out cryptocurrency investment fraud from compounds surrounded by high walls and barbed wire.
The US government seized $15 billion in bitcoin in a crackdown on the group, which the Justice Department described as the largest seizure of its kind in its history.
The Prince Group has denied the allegations, describing the action as an “asset grab dressed up as law enforcement”. A spokesperson said Chen Zhi and his companies were legitimate businesses and “innocent of the wild and unfounded accusations made by the U.S government”.
The indictment alleged that “Co-Conspirator-2” used “corrupt and violent means” to protect the Prince Group’s position among scam operators. It also alleged that the individual bought a $3 million yacht for a foreign government official as a bribe.
Zhang pictured in luxury car
Zhang’s apparent association with Sokly also emerged through social media. In 2024, she posted a photograph of herself in the driver’s seat of a Bugatti Chiron, describing it as a friend’s luxury car. The photograph was removed this week.
The car was said to belong to Wenzhi “Wesley” Fei, a cryptocurrency trader who described himself on social media as a “poker degenerate”. Fei told investigators that he did not own it and had borrowed it from Sokly, whom he called a “friend” and a “generous gentleman”.
Photographs and videos posted online show Fei with Sokly among luxury sports cars and on a 71-foot yacht imported by Sokly from Singapore, according to customs records.
Fei also posted a video of himself getting into a Ferrari outside a California property owned by Brendon Luo, who was sanctioned by the US Treasury over his alleged involvement with the Prince Group.
In 2024, Fei’s cryptocurrency company, Block Infinity, organised a luxury yacht event for members of the cryptocurrency industry at a Prince Group-owned tower in Singapore. Fei said he did not attend the event, did not know Zhang and was not close to Sokly.
Fei has not been charged with any crime. Zhang has not been charged with offences beyond the allegation that she acted as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government, and neither she nor Fei has been connected to the Prince Group or the alleged cartel money-laundering operation in federal law-enforcement filings.
Sokly did not respond to a request for comment sent to his California company. The surname Zhang is common in China, and there is no indication that Wanying Zhang is related to Cheng Zhang or Sai Zhang, who was identified as an alleged cartel money launderer.
