Six men are accused of kidnapping three family members and a nanny from a Chicago townhouse in October and forcing a transfer of about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets before releasing them five days later near a dry cleaners, according to recently unsealed court records.
The five-day kidnapping is detailed in a 44-page FBI affidavit unsealed last week. Agents collected evidence — including receipts, unused zip ties and surveillance footage — from rental cars, cryptocurrency wallets, a suburban Airbnb and various fast-food restaurants and retail stores, court records show.
One of the alleged kidnappers, 34-year-old Zehuan Wei, was arrested Jan. 17 while trying to enter the United States from Mexico at a California border crossing. He made an initial court appearance in California.
Five other men are charged with kidnapping in the case: Fan Zhang, Huajing Yan, Shengnan Jiang, Shiqiang Lian and Ye Cao. Some of them are believed to have taken flights from Mexico to China last month after Wei’s arrest, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit.
The court records do not say where the suspects are from but indicated that some held U.S. drivers licenses. At least Zhang and Wei also had Chinese passports, documents show.
Four people kidnapped
Authorities were first notified of the kidnapping after a father, referred to as “Individual A” in the affidavit, got a call from his son on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, around 1 p.m. Oct. 27 alerting him that the group had been kidnapped. The victims also aren’t named in the court records and are referred to as “Victims A-D.”
The man’s son, who had moved into a Chicago townhouse a couple weeks prior, told him he was kidnapped with two of his family members and a nanny and that the kidnappers demanded a ransom payment or they’d be killed, the affidavit says. The kidnappers demanded the father send Bitcoin or Ethereum, popular cryptocurrencies, according to the affidavit.
A man wearing a hat and glasses had knocked on the family’s door in Chicago, claiming to have accidentally damaged their garage door, the victims later told the FBI after they were released. When the door opened, multiple unknown men with guns grabbed the family members and nanny, the affidavit says. The son told authorities he was grabbed after getting out of the shower.
The kidnappers immediately asked the son to conduct cryptocurrency transactions, and he said they drove him around multiple times to make additional transactions, the affidavit says. They later made independent transactions after gaining access to his accounts, totaling about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets, according to the affidavit.
The kidnappers put the victims into a white Ford van and drove them for about an hour to an Airbnb in what the FBI later learned was in Forest Park, the affidavit says. After one night, the victims were taken to a different house and were eventually released on the afternoon of Nov. 1. They walked to a nearby dry cleaners, called an Uber and went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the affidavit says.
The son said he was hit on the head with a gun — which he later said may have been fake — but that otherwise they were treated fine, the affidavit said. The victims remembered eating McDonald’s, Culver’s, Subway and PF Chang’s. One of the victims also recalled that the suspects spoke both Mandarin and Spanish.
Surveillance footage reviewed
The FBI reviewed surveillance footage from the Forest Park Airbnb, which showed the alleged kidnappers arriving in a white van and talking on a cellphone. The FBI believed, based on that footage, that there were at least six offenders, the affidavit says.
They compared the footage to Cao’s picture taken by U.S. Custom’s and Border Patrol, Jiang’s Illinois driver’s license picture and California driver’s license pictures for Zhang, Yan, Lian and Wei.
Agents found a water bottle, baby wipes and unused white zip ties inside the white Ford van, which they tracked down to a Chicago auto leasing company. They also found DNA swabs, receipts, clothing, medical masks, cigarettes, an AirPod case and latent prints inside a white Chrysler Pacifica that Wei rented Oct. 29 in Hoffman Estates.
They also spotted some of the kidnappers in surveillance footage at a McDonald’s in far northwest suburban Hampshire, a Culver’s in Berwyn, a BP gas station in Oak Park and Target stores in Streamwood and Schaumburg during the kidnapping time frame, the affidavit says. The son and a family member were able to identify some of the kidnappers in a photo array, according to the affidavit.
By analyzing travel records, authorities learned that Wei and Zhang flew from O’Hare International Airport to Las Vegas on Nov. 1. Lian, Cao, Yan and Jiang were believed to have left Chicago for Los Angeles the same day, the affidavit says.
The six men were charged Dec. 13 with kidnapping.
Customs and Border Patrol arrested Wei on Jun. 17 while he tried to enter the United States from Mexico at the Otay Mesa, California, border crossing, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit. The affidavit was filed Jan. 24 in support of a search warrant for two cellphones Wei carried with him. He also had a California driver’s license, a Chinese passport and $661 in cash.
The FBI later learned that Jiang and Yan had boarded the same flight departing Tijuana, Mexico, for Beijing, at about 8:30 a.m. Jan. 19. Lian boarded a flight from Tijuana to Beijing the next morning, the affidavit says.
About $9 million of the cryptocurrency remains unaccounted for, according to the affidavit.
