A 59-year-old Chinese woman, Qiuju Wu, residing in Flushing, Queens, participated in the theft of over 2.8 million dollars from the bank accounts of a missing couple from Long Island. Recently, she was sentenced in the Central Islip Federal Court to time served and is expected to be deported to China as her visa has expired. Wu had been detained for about a year prior to the sentencing.
In March of this year, Wu pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Initially, the prosecution sought a sentence of 15 to 21 months of imprisonment, but Federal District Court Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury ultimately sentenced her to time served and ordered her to fully compensate the stolen 2.8 million dollars. Wu, who personally gained 101,000 dollars from the crime, must pay her share within 30 days of the sentencing.
The case involves the mysterious disappearance of a Long Island couple, JuanJuan Zwang and Peishuan Fan, since March 2025. The last sighting of the couple was at their mansion on Maria Lane in Old Brookville, Long Island, on March 30, 2025. Their whereabouts remain unknown, and the case of their disappearance remains unsolved.
Federal officials believe that the theft from the couple’s bank accounts is unrelated to their disappearance.
The judge stated that Wu was only involved in the account of one of the missing individuals, from which over 1.7 million dollars were transferred. The portion stolen from the account of the other missing individual was not related to Wu.
Wu was arrested in Texas in September last year. During sentencing, she tearfully apologized to the court through a Mandarin interpreter, saying, “I apologize to all of you… I apologize to the U.S. government.” She also vowed to be a better person in the future.
Prosecutors admitted in court that Wu was cooperative during the investigation and voluntarily disclosed that she profited 101,000 dollars from the crime. An Assistant U.S. Attorney stated that without Wu’s cooperation, the federal government would not have known the full extent of the proceeds from the crime. Wu faces serious consequences for her crime, including eventual deportation. She is a Chinese citizen with an expired visa in the U.S.
The other defendant in this case, 36-year-old Yinye Wang, also known as Roy Wang, previously resided in Roslyn, Long Island, and College Point, Queens. He was arrested in California and granted bail but failed to appear in court as required in New York and is currently a fugitive.
The missing couple moved to the U.S. in 2022, initially living in a luxury apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 2023, they purchased the mansion in Old Brookville for 3.8 million dollars in cash. Fan, aged 48 at the time, was a business owner, and Zwang, aged 44, was a full-time mother.
John Carman, the lawyer representing the older children of the missing couple, stated that there have been no new developments in the case of the couple’s disappearance. He expressed gratitude for the legal action taken against Qiuju Wu but mentioned that the case resulted in significant financial losses and the family still hopes for accountability for the “more culpable parties” involved.