Qiuju Wu, a resident of Flushing, admitted on Tuesday in the Eastern District Federal Court in New York to embezzling over $2.8 million from the missing Long Island wealthy couple’s bank accounts. However, the authorities stated that the whereabouts of another suspect in the case, Yinye Wang, 37 years old, and the missing couple remains a mystery.
The 56-year-old Qiuju Wu appeared in court at the Eastern District Federal Court this Tuesday and pleaded guilty to the charge of “bank fraud conspiracy.”
According to the prosecution, the missing victims are JuanJuan Zwang, 45 years old, and her husband Peishuan Fan, 49 years old, who disappeared from their mansion in Old Brookville, Nassau County, Long Island on March 31, 2025, with no trace since then.
Investigations revealed that Qiuju Wu began her scheme on June 29, 2025. She initially changed her personal account at Bank of America, with only a few thousand dollars in deposits, to a “joint account” with the victim JuanJuan Zwang, altering the account to be a “joint with rights of survivorship.”
Once the account became joint, both parties could freely access the money inside, and in the event of one party’s passing, the assets would automatically transfer to the other. After the alteration, the signed card displayed names, social security numbers, presumed signatures of both Wu and Zhang, and the account address was changed to relate to Zhang.
Following the tampering of the account, a substantial amount of money began flowing in. According to the prosecution’s information: on June 30, $890,000 from JuanJuan Zwang’s account was transferred to Wu’s account; on July 1, another $500,000 was transferred; later that day, Wu transferred $190,000 to her company, QJW Trading Inc.; within ten minutes, surveillance footage captured her withdrawing $700,000 in cash from the bank counter.
On July 2, Peishuan Fan’s name was also added to Wu’s joint account, with Fan’s name, social security number, and presumed signature appearing on the signed card, and the account address changed to be related to Peishuan Fan. Wu and her accomplice Yinye Wang replicated their actions, transferring $860,000 from Fan’s account. The next day, surveillance footage captured the two withdrawing over $410,000 from the counter.
Within less than two weeks, by July 10, the $2.8 million under the missing couple’s name was successively transferred to accounts controlled by Wu and Wang.
The prosecution has yet to confirm a direct correlation between this substantial embezzlement and the whereabouts of the missing couple. Still, investigators stated that evidence they possessed indicated that accomplice Yinye Wang had attempted to steal identities of other clients of the same bank. In December 2023, Wang was detained and questioned by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials at Los Angeles International Airport. He was later granted bail but is currently believed to have fled the United States.
At the time of his detention, TSA officials found multiple suspicious items in Wang’s luggage, including several cell phones, New York and Oklahoma driver’s licenses issued under different names, 17 credit cards not in his name, and 12 bank account application documents involving six different names, all relating to the same branch of the bank where Qiuju Wu withdrew large sums. Additionally, investigators found handwritten notes by Wang containing names, birth dates, social security numbers, ATM cards, and account passwords of multiple individuals.
During a secondary inspection, Wang attempted to remove some items from his luggage, claiming they were “trash” to be discarded. However, these items were recovered and inventoried by officials, who also found a business card of an employee from the bank among Wang’s belongings.
Qiuju Wu was scheduled to plead guilty last month but postponed to March 18 due to expressing a low mood to the judge. On that day, through an interpreter, she stated, “Between June and August 2024, I and others agreed to open a bank account. I knew these accounts would be used to receive and transfer fraudulently obtained money. I knew it was illegal, but for the sake of money, I still agreed to participate.”
However, her confession did not provide any new clues about the missing couple’s whereabouts. Authorities mentioned that the case had made no progress.
The missing couple immigrated to the United States in 2022 and have two sons aged 12 and 20, who have not seen their parents for nearly a year.
Family lawyers expressed that although the children are grateful to Qiuju Wu for admitting to embezzling their parents’ money, they are more concerned about the fate of their parents.
Qiuju Wu was arrested in Texas in September 2025. According to a plea agreement, she could face a maximum sentence of 1 year and 7 months, be required to compensate $1.8 million, forfeit $1 million, pay a $100,000 fine, with her sentencing scheduled for July 1.