How Chinese money and American greed turned the EB-5 visa program into a cesspool of illegality.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
The fugitive kept many names. For an HSBC bank account in Canada, he was Feng Li. For an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China account, he was Ling Wang. For another, he was Bo Gong. The fugitive had a litany of companies too, though what they actually did was unclear: CJ Max Investments LLC, Faith Advance Limited, S&O Investments LLC. He had investments the world over: the United States, Panama, Cyprus, Austria, St. Kitts and Nevis. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, all of it — the aliases, the companies, the international investments — were a money laundering smokescreen for one man: Qiao Jianjun.
When it comes to allegations of wrongdoing, Beijing and Washington agree on little. But on Qiao’s misdeeds they are in sync. From 1998 to 2011, the Chinese government alleges, Qiao siphoned off $98 million as director of the Zhoukou Municipal Grain Reserve, a grain storehouse in China’s breadbasket of Henan Province. Qiao was a lauded employee of Sinograin, a sta
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