Chinese nationals busted in bizarre passport scheme at California airport

Two Chinese nationals allegedly tried to sneak into the United States using the identities of actual American citizens — a passport-swapping scheme that crashed into a wall when facial recognition caught them at a California airport.

Jin Fu Wei, 44, of Guangxi Province, China, and Xiaodan Lei, 47, of Henan Province, were detained after flying from Mexico to Orange County’s John Wayne Airport on Aug. 26 and allegedly presenting US passports belonging to other people, federal prosecutors said.

“This case is not only a criminal matter. It also raises serious national security concerns when foreign citizens are able to enter the United States under false identities. We have a right to know exactly who is crossing our borders and what their intentions are,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said.

The alleged identity swap quickly unraveled. Customs and Border Protection officers found that the facial-recognition scans of the two men did not match the biometric information associated with the passports they presented.

Neither man’s real name appeared on the flight manifest, prosecutors said.

And Wei allegedly had some especially incriminating-looking paperwork on him, a Chinese credit card and Chinese bank card bearing his own name, plus an expired Texas driver’s license belonging to the American whose passport he allegedly used.

The men told investigators that an unknown person communicating with them through WeChat helped arrange their trip to Mexico and obtain the American passports. The two allegedly said they did not know each other before the journey.

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Their account described a passport-for-passport exchange in Mexico. Wei and Lei allegedly said they bought the US passports from an unidentified person and surrendered their genuine Chinese passports to that same individual.

After getting into the United States, they were allegedly supposed to contact the WeChat intermediary, who would arrange another meeting to retrieve the American passports and return their Chinese documents.

The alleged operation involved the identities of real Americans. Wei and Lei reportedly told investigators they knew nothing about the passport holders, but prosecutors say at least one of the Americans whose passport was allegedly used had previously been arrested and had a criminal history.

Both have been in federal custody since their arrests and face charges of misuse of a passport.

If convicted, each man faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in federal prison.