Woman charged with smuggling people into the U.S. from China

A Nevada woman was arrested Wednesday for her alleged role in a multi-year scheme to commit visa fraud, money laundering, and smuggling Chinese nationals into the United States.

Haiyan Liao, 43, of Las Vegas, is charged in an indictment obtained in the Eastern District of New York and unsealed Wednesday (Jan. 13) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. 

She is charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and bringing foreign nationals into the U.S. for financial gain, and money laundering conspiracy.

“The United States benefits from the rich diversity of culture and experience which results from lawful immigration into our country,” said David P. Burns, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

“This defendant, however, is charged with submitting false applications for visitor visas to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and engaging in money laundering as part of a multi-year (human) smuggling business that brought Chinese nationals into the United States illegally.”

“The defendant provided fake documents and coached her accomplices regarding how to lie during visa interviews and customs checks,.” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme of the Eastern District of New York. 

According to the indictment, Liao, with others, fraudulently obtained visitor visas by submitting applications containing false statements to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China as part of a scheme to traffic people from China to the U.S. 

For the people whose  applications were approved, Liao would facilitate their travel to the U.S., including accompanying them on commercial flights to Queens and Brooklyn, New York. The aliens and their families paid thousands of dollars in exchange for the visitor visas and travel to the U.S.