A Chinese woman in the country illegally led a years-long scam that cost a victim $600,000 and millions in identity theft, according to charges against her.
Wei Song, 59, and her boyfriend, 52-year-old Botao Liu, are accused of theft by deception in the alleged scam that promised “investment opportunities” and building up the victim’s credit, according to the affidavit of probable cause obtained by BreakingAC.
Both moved frequently, but were last known to be living in Egg Harbor Township, police said.
Min Wang invited the woman from Jilin, China, to stay with her family in Galloway Township after they became friends in 2014.
Over the next four years, Wang gave the woman she knew as Coco Li a total of $600,000 for “investment opportunities.”
But what the victim didn’t know was that Li was really Song, who had been in the country years after her temporary visa expired in 2010.
A year-long investigation by Galloway Township police led to the arrests of Song and Liu by the Bensalem Township Police Department. The two are in the process of being transferred from the Bucks County Correctional Facility to the Atlantic County jail, according to jail records.
After befriending Wang, Song “began to weave a detailed social engineering scheme that detailed her as wealthy and successful with numerous businesses in her name,” the detective wrote in the affidavit.
She would “provide various excuses and reasons why Min couldn’t receive her ‘profits’ or original money back,” the affidavit states.
The tales were allegedly bolstered by Liu.
Song also took Wang’s driver’s license to “build (Wang’s) credit.”
Instead, she used the victim’s identity at various casinos in Atlantic City and in other states to incur more than $3 million in win/loss profits, leading to unpaid tax judgments against Wang from the IRS, according to the accusations.
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Wang recieved “multiple high-amount checks to ‘cover the given money,” totaling $2.9 million, the affidavit states.
The checks all bounced.
Facial recognition through U.S. Customs and Border Protection helped identify “Coco” as Wei Song, according to the affidavit.
The investigation is ongoing, with “multiple victims … provid(ing) corroborating statements of how they were similarly scammed by” Song and Liu.
In addition to using Coco Li and Wang’s identity, Song also used the alias Juny Li, Galloway police said.
Anyone who has been financially victimized by either of these individuals or knows someone who has is asked to call Detective Timothy Giberson at (609) 652-3705, ext. 386.
Galloway police thanked the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, Atlantic County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI’s Atlantic City Resident Agency, U.S. Secret Service, the State Police Division of Gaming Enforcement, Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for their assistance.
