Federal court filings uncover extensive connections between a California realtor accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent and individuals tied to sprawling global criminal operations.
Federal authorities charged Wanying ‘Heather’ Zhang, a 34-year-old realtor based in Irvine, last week after investigators alleged she conducted surveillance on the son of Taiwan’s president in Seattle in 2025.
Court records reviewed by journalists indicate that both Zhang and her travel companion, 54-year-old Fatai Miao, maintain associations with figures involved in massive financial crimes and transnational illicit networks.
These overlapping associations offer insight into the diverse activities of Zhang, who federal prosecutors claim spent years engaging in covert operations while maintaining a high-profile lifestyle in California, sharing images on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. During her time in California, Zhang appears to have traveled in wealthy circles, posing for photos on the Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu in a Bugatti sports car. With the caption, “check out my friend’s luxury car, in 2024 she posted a photo on Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu showing herself sitting in the driver’s seat of a Bugatti Chiron. A self-described “poker degenerate” and cryptocurrency trader, according to his social media posts, the car belonged to Wenzhi “Wesley” Fei. According to but in an interview with, Fei, He does not own the car. Luxury sports cars, and Fei posing in front of a 71-foot yacht imported by Sokly from Singapore, according to customs records, videos and photos shared on social media show Fei with Sokly in a garage with rare. He also posted on his Instagram page a video showing him climbing into a Ferrari sports car parked in the driveway of a Yorba Linda, California, home belonging to Brendon Luo, who was sanctioned by the U.S. According to fei, He did not attend the event, that he does not know Wanying “Heather” Zhang, and that he and Sokly “were not that close.
Investigators state that an international conglomerate known as the Prince Group executed online scams totaling at least $15 billion targeting individuals in the United States, utilizing forced labor camps across approximately 10 sites in Cambodia. Probe into international scam operation. Thousands of migrant workers traveled to Cambodia and elsewhere seeking job opportunities but instead were trafficked and forced to work in scam compounds executing cryptocurrency investment fraud and other fraudulent schemes, often under the threat of violence,” the indictment says. “The scam compounds housed vast dormitories surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, and functioned as forced labor camps. Mr. Chen and his companies were not a criminal syndicate but a collection of legitimate businesses serving millions of people and employing tens of thousands of people across the globe,” a Prince Group spokesperson told OCCRP in June.
Zhang maintained a multi-year association with Miao, a construction entrepreneur who serves as the registered agent and organizer for Yuanjin Development and Construction LLC.
Miao’s business is registered at a $4.5 million suburban property in Irvine that prosecutors allege served as a stash house for an illegal Chinese money laundering syndicate operating alongside the Sinaloa Cartel, as outlined in a 2023 criminal complaint. Medium-sized weighted tote bag” at the home on March 1, 2023, according to an affidavit in the criminal complaint, drug Enforcement Administration task force officer Steven Gonzalez tracked a member of an alleged “large money laundering organization” dropping off a “red. According to i believe, based upon my training and experience, my knowledge of this investigation, and conversations with agents experienced in money laundering techniques, that [the man] had just picked up and made a delivery of United, Currency that was the proceeds of illicit activity,” the DEA agent wrote in the May 2023 complaint. An alleged leader of the organization was arrested on May 12, 2023, telling a DEA agent that he had 10 to 20 people on his team and that “most of the funds he sells come from fraud schemes,” the agent wrote in the affidavit. According to he later admitted that he had previously dealt in drug proceeds through 2020, but, It was ‘scary,’ because of the consequences from ‘the Mexicans’ if any funds were lost,” the agent wrote.
Law enforcement officials tracked multiple cash deliveries to stash houses across Los Angeles and Orange counties during the investigation.
Although Miao was not formally charged in that specific complaint, prosecutors note that he departed for China on a one-way ticket just days before federal agents executed a search warrant at his Irvine residence last month.
During Zhang’s second court hearing, federal prosecutors asserted she also operated an unlicensed currency exchange business, routing $190,000 in profits to a bank account in China, though government attorneys stopped short of connecting those funds directly to the Prince Group.
Separate indictments unsealed in April 2024 against 24 members of the network feature evidence photos displaying large bundles of currency alongside substantial shipments of narcotics. A separate indictment filed against 24 members of the group in April 2024 includes photographs from federal seizures showing stacks of $100 bills and truckfuls of bricks of cocaine and methamphetamine.
Key Court Findings
- Enterprise Scale: The Prince Group allegedly operated 10 forced labor camps in Cambodia
- Financial Scope: Transnational scams targeted U.S. residents for at least $15 billion
- Seizure Record: Federal authorities seized $15 billion in bitcoin during the crackdown
- Network Figures: Indicted members utilized aliases such as Ocean, Batman, and Dr. P
Corporate records connect Miao’s business partner in Yuanjin Development, Cheng Zhang, to another firm managed alongside an alleged enforcer for the Prince Group identified as Sokly. The car appears to be owned by a man described by the Justice Department as the “enforcer” in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud ring fueled by modern slavery.
U.S. authorities identified Sokly as the individual designated as Co-Conspirator-2 in federal indictments filed against Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi in New York. According to the indictment, “Co-Conspirator-2” used “corrupt and violent means to maintain Prince Group’s dominance among scam operators,” including allegedly buying a $3 million yacht for a foreign government official as a bribe. An international nonprofit, on Aug, sokly was first identified as Co-Conspirator-2 by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Parroted in jurisdictions around the world, chen Zhi and the Prince Group of companies are innocent of the wild and unfounded accusations made by the U.S government.
The indictment characterizes the Prince Group as a major transnational criminal network in Asia that generated immense revenue through fraudulent schemes and human trafficking operations.
Legal representatives for the Prince Group have rejected the allegations, characterizing the government enforcement actions as a targeted asset seizure.
Furthermore, investigative records connect Wanying Zhang to the same alleged criminal enforcer through social media imagery depicting her operating a luxury vehicle previously linked to associates of the network.
Important Details
- This story published first on at 6:00 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2026.
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