rss
mobile
Feeds
Zilen Wang, also known as Zi Tong Wang, 34, of Beaufort is an illegal immigrant and one of the owners and operators of the Chinese restaurants, the release said.
The release said Wang encouraged restaurant employees to transport illegal immigrants to and from the Jade Garden restaurants to work there, and he also provided vehicles to transport them.
He will be sentenced later by Senior U.S. District Judge Sol Blatt Jr. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the release said.
Wang and five other Chinese nationals in Beaufort County who own or operate the Jade Garden restaurants were indicted by a federal grand jury in May on charges of conspiracy and harboring and transporting illegal aliens.
The indictments followed raids by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents in March of the two restaurants and several residences. Fifteen, including Wang, were charged March 24 with being in the U.S. illegally.
Wang already was considered an ICE fugitive after failing to comply with a 1998 voluntary departure order issued by a federal judge.
Federal court records suggest authorities began looking into Wang and the restaurants after they received a tip from an unnamed local law enforcement officer who frequented the restaurant in Beaufort.
The restaurant on Fording Island Road in greater Bluffton reopened March 31, seven days after the arrests. The Jade Garden on Boundary Street in Beaufort re-opened in mid-April.
Authorities say the restaurant owners negotiated to hire waitresses and dishwashers smuggled into the U.S. from China and Latin America, housed them in a trailer in Burton and paid them little.
The case was investigated by the Charleston Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
