Two former Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies have been indicted along with two soldiers from Australia and Great Britain for staging a fake immigration raid on a Chinese man to coerce him into signing away his business interests.
The fake raid was reportedly orchestrated by a Chinese businesswoman who still lives in China in an attempt to shakedown her former business associate, an immigrant from China and legal U.S. resident, into having him sign away $37 million in business interests. The orchestrator reportedly paid $400,000 in 2019 for the four mercenaries to carry it out.
“At some point, this wealthy Chinese national decided to hire these mercenaries to go carry out what they did,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada told reporters in downtown LA. “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.”
The indictment named now-retired deputy Steven A. Lankford, who was actively employed as a law enforcement officer at the time, as one of the co-conspirators.
“He used his badge to gain entry into the home. He used his authority as a Sheriff’s deputy to intimidate the family and to threaten the businessman with deportation,” Estrada said.
According to NBC Los Angeles, Lankford had “retired in 2017 but returned to the Sheriff’s Department to work a limited number of hours each year as a part-time employee and was working in that capacity at the time of the 2019 incident, according to prosecutors.”
“The indictment, which accuses the four of taking part in a conspiracy to commit extortion and the deprivation of rights under the color of law, said Lankford also tried to shut down an investigation into the raid after the victim reported it to the Irvine Police Department,” noted the outlet.
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