Six Individuals Charged With Conspiring To Traffic More Than $30 Million Of Contraband Cigarettes

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/six-individuals-charged-conspiring-traffic-more-30-million-contraband-cigarettes

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, January 24, 2019

Six Individuals Charged With Conspiring To Traffic More Than $30 Million Of Contraband Cigarettes

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), Angel M. Melendez, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), Matthew Modafferi, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General, Northeast Area Field Office (“USPS-OIG”), and Joseph Fucito, New York City Sheriff, announced today the unsealing of an Indictment in Manhattan federal court charging SHAO JUN GUO, JIAN JIANG FENG, YUE JUAN CHEN, ZHURONG GAO, SHUI YING LIN, and WO KIT CHENG with conspiring to traffic contraband cigarettes and trafficking contraband cigarettes. The defendants were arrested yesterday and will be presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger today. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman. The defendants will be arraigned before Judge Furman on January 31, 2019, at 11:00 a.m.
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According to the allegations in the Indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court[1]: From June 2013 through January 2019, the defendants engaged in a scheme to smuggle and traffic $30 million of untaxed cigarettes in the United States to avoid at least $30 million in taxes.
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