POLITICS: DOJ indicts 11 in sham marriage ring that funneled Chinese nationals through Jacksonville – USSA News

Eleven people now face federal charges for their alleged roles in a marriage fraud conspiracy designed to smuggle Chinese nationals into legal U.S. residency — and a related scheme to bribe their way into unauthorized Department of Defense identification cards at a Navy base in Jacksonville, Florida.

News Nation reported that the indictment lays out a sprawling operation that stretched from New York to Nevada, recruited American citizens to marry foreign nationals they didn’t know, and ultimately landed on the doorstep of Naval Air Station Jacksonville, where the conspirators allegedly tried to buy real military ID cards with cash.

One defendant, Navy reservist Raymond Zumba, has already pleaded guilty.

The scheme

The conspiracy operated on a simple transactional model: recruit U.S. citizens willing to enter sham marriages with Chinese nationals, pay them in installments, and use the marriages to circumvent American immigration law.

The payment structure moved in three phases — cash up front for going through with the marriage, a second payment once legal immigration status was obtained, and a final payment after the divorce. No dollar amounts have been disclosed.

The marriage fraud conspiracy spanned from March 2024 through February 2025, with sham marriages carried out in Jacksonville, New York, Connecticut, and Nevada.

One such marriage — involving defendants Anny Chen, 54, of New York, and Linlin Wang, 38, of China — took place in Jacksonville on August 31, 2024.

This wasn’t a paperwork shortcut. It was an organized pipeline to manufacture legal residency for foreign nationals who had no lawful basis to remain in the country.

From fraud to a Navy base

The conspiracy didn’t stop at fake marriages. Beginning in November 2024, a subset of the defendants allegedly pivoted to something more brazen — attempting to obtain unauthorized Department of Defense identification cards from Naval Air Station Jacksonville.

In January 2025, a source reported to law enforcement that Zumba had offered a bribe to the source and the source’s spouse, who worked in the NAS Jacksonville personnel office. Zumba allegedly asked whether the spouse would be willing to issue real but unauthorized ID cards in exchange for under-the-table payments.

Federal agents stepped in. They directed the source to continue communicating with Zumba, building a case in real time. The communications stretched from January through mid-February, with Zumba discussing plans to obtain the fraudulent cards for cash.

On February 13, Zumba drove from New York to Jacksonville. That evening, he arrived at NAS Jacksonville alongside Anny Chen, Hailing Feng, and Kin Man Cheok.

The source’s spouse let them into the personnel office after business hours and began the ID card process. The next day, Zumba met with the source to collect the cards — and was arrested.

A Navy reservist, walking onto a military installation after hours with foreign nationals in tow, attempting to purchase DOD credentials with cash. That’s not a victimless paperwork crime. That’s a national security breach.

The defendants

The eleven indicted individuals span multiple states and countries:

• Anny Chen, 54, New York — Marriage Fraud Conspiracy, Marriage Fraud, Bribery Conspiracy
• Hailing Feng, 27, New York — Marriage Fraud Conspiracy, Bribery Conspiracy
• Kin Man Cheok, 32, China — Marriage Fraud Conspiracy, Bribery Conspiracy
• Linlin Wang, 38, China — Marriage Fraud Conspiracy, Marriage Fraud
• Sha Xie, 38, China
• Jiawei Chen, 29, China
• Xionghu Fang, 41, China
• Tao Fan, 26, China
• Yafeng Deng, 23, New York
• Kiah Holly, 29, Maryland
• Jaden Bullion, 24, Florida

Each charge — Marriage Fraud Conspiracy, Marriage Fraud, and Bribery Conspiracy — carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. Several defendants face multiple counts.

The investigation brought together Homeland Security Investigations, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the FBI — the kind of multi-agency coordination that signals how seriously the feds treated this case.

What this case actually tells us

Marriage fraud isn’t new. Neither is bribery. But the convergence of immigration fraud and military installation access in a single conspiracy deserves more attention than it will likely get.

Five of the eleven defendants are listed as residents of China. The conspiracy specifically targeted Chinese nationals for the sham marriages. And the endgame wasn’t just green cards — it was DOD identification, the kind of credential that grants access to military facilities and systems.

Americans are constantly told that the immigration system just needs more compassion, more flexibility, more pathways. What cases like this reveal is that the existing system is already being exploited by organized networks that treat U.S. residency as a product to be purchased and U.S. military installations as places where the right bribe opens the right door.

Every sham marriage in this conspiracy occupied a slot in a system that legal immigrants wait years to navigate honestly. Every fraudulent residency application consumed resources meant to process legitimate cases. The people harmed by marriage fraud aren’t abstract — they’re the legal immigrants playing by the rules while organized rings cut the line.

And the bribery component adds a dimension that should unsettle anyone who takes base security seriously. The conspirators didn’t hack a database or forge documents from a distance. They allegedly walked onto NAS Jacksonville after hours, sat in the personnel office, and started the credentialing process — because they believed a cash payment was all it took.

The system worked — this time

Credit where it’s due: the source came forward. Federal agents built a careful sting. Zumba was arrested the moment he reached for the cards. The multi-agency team executed a case that stretched across four states and two countries.

But one sting operation doesn’t close the vulnerability. If Zumba believed he could buy DOD credentials from a personnel office employee, it wasn’t a thought that materialized from nowhere. That confidence came from somewhere — from a system where he calculated the risk was worth taking.

Eleven indictments and one guilty plea. It’s a start. The question is whether it’s an endpoint or a thread that, when pulled, reveals something larger.

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