Chinese Illegal Immigrant Sentenced to Prison for Fraud Scheme to Buy Luxury Cars

A Chinese national residing in the United States illegally has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for running a scheme that used stolen identities to apply for loans to buy luxury cars for resale, according to federal prosecutors.

Zheng Huachun, a 43-year-old also known as Yuan Ri, was sentenced in federal court in Hartford, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut announced on April 2.

The defendant, who last lived in New York City, has been in detention since his arrest in January 2025. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft in January 2026.

According to the plea agreement, Zheng, who did not have legal status to remain in the United States, and his co-conspirators engaged in the scheme from September 2022 to October 2022. Together, they used stolen personal identifying information to secure auto loans from banks and other lenders under victims’ names. After the loans were approved, the group posed as the victims, using fake driver’s licenses to buy or lease vehicles at a dealership in Greenwich, Connecticut. The vehicles were then transported from Connecticut to New York for resale.

Under the scheme, in September 2022, Zheng used the stolen identity of a victim—identified only as “B.C.” by prosecutors—to obtain about $94,742 in financing from a bank to buy a Porsche Panamera at the Greenwich dealership, according to the plea agreement.

The dealership repossessed the Porsche Panamera before it could be resold after the fraud scheme came to light, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut.

As part of the plea, Zheng agreed to forfeit six vehicles: a 2022 Mercedes-Benz S 580, a 2018 Porsche Macan, a 2018 Mercedes-Benz S 560, a 2019 Porsche Panamera, a 2022 Mercedes-Benz GT 53, and a 2021 Chevrolet Corvette.

Zheng was arrested in Nassau County, New York, on Sept. 10, 2022, while he was driving a Maserati that had been purchased from a dealership in Jamaica, New York, using B.C.’s identity, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In a sentencing memorandum filed in January, Zheng’s lawyer argued that his client should receive a lenient sentence because he “participated in one such transaction” using someone’s identification at the Greenwich dealership, while his “co-defendants participated in several.”

“Defendant’s role even within this transaction was not central in that he did not plan it, did not himself obtain the stolen driver’s license, and his profit was intended to be only $500, with others to keep whatever else could be realized from the transaction,” Zheng’s lawyer wrote.

Zheng’s lawyer also highlighted that his client was “trying to emigrate” to the United States because of “a fear of religious persecution.”

Prosecutors dismissed both arguments presented by Zheng’s lawyer in their sentencing memorandum filed in March.

“The more important question is why someone like Zheng, who reportedly came to the United States for freedom and to escape persecution, chose by his own telling to live a life of recidivist crime and predation,” prosecutors wrote.

“His willingness to take advantage of the openness within American society degrades the sense of social trust that Zheng himself sought in this country.”

As for the argument that he participated in only one transaction, prosecutors wrote that he “did constitute a minor participant” but that “evidence establishes that Zheng possessed dozens of false or stolen identity documents and perpetuated very similar frauds on multiple occasions, often with the same co-conspirators.”

The Epoch Times was unable to contact Zheng’s legal representation for comment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Zheng will face immigration proceedings once he completes his prison sentence.