Former police officials in California have been arrested and charged after they were caught staging a fake immigration raid.
A former police deputy was charged with carrying out a cruel extortion scheme on behalf of a Chinese businesswoman.
The scheme involved raiding the home of her former business partner.
Retired Los Angeles deputy Steven A. Lankford was still working part-time when he orchestrated a fake immigration raid.
The raid sought to intimidate the victim, a Chinese immigrant and legal U.S. resident.
Lankford targeted the victim with phony threats of deportation.
Three others joined Lankford in raiding the victim’s home.
They coerced the victim into signing away his business rights to the tune of $37 million.
The four co-conspirators were paid $400,000 to carry out the 2019 raid.
The scheme was orchestrated on behalf of an unnamed businesswoman from Communist China.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said:
“At some point, this wealthy Chinese national decided to hire these mercenaries to go carry out what they did.
“The goal was to get this person to sign a contract to give away his business rights.
“That’s what he ended up doing, but he did it by force, intimidation, and extortion,” Estrada