Reuters has a report on a bizarre scam being operated by a Chinese man in El Monte. He raked in something like $120,000 telling immigrants that they could get citizenship by joining a special unit of the Army that he commanded. He even paraded them around in uniform (if anyone has pictures of this, please send them our way). Here is an excerpt from the article:
A Chinese man was arrested on Tuesday for creating a fake U.S. Army unit and selling immigrants on the idea that joining the squad was a path to citizenship, authorities said.
Yupeng Deng, 51, allegedly gave his "recruits" military uniforms, had them parade in a Los Angeles suburb and took them to the decommissioned USS Midway aircraft carrier, which is a museum in San Diego.
Deng charged more than 100 fellow Chinese nationals a fee of between $300 and $450 to join the fake Army unit, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office.
He called his bogus squad the U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve unit, or MSFR for short, and he gave himself the lofty title of "supreme commander," prosecutors said.
Aside from telling recruits that belonging to the unit was a path to U.S. citizenship, Deng also urged them to pay him cash for higher military rank, according to prosecutors.
