Feds: 6 plotted to beat restaurant worker to collect $40,000 debt
Suspect in beating over debt
Bing Liang "Michael" Chen, 26. (. Illinois Department of Corrections)
By Deanese Williams-Harris,
Chicago Tribune
contact the reporter AssaultCrimeChicago SuburbsAurora

Feds suggest June beating related to organized criminal enterprise in Chicago's Chinatown.
Six men have been charged with plotting to beat up a restaurant worker in the western suburbs to collect a $40,000 business debt.

Federal prosecutors said five of the six men assaulted the victim in June outside an Aurora restaurant where he worked at the time. They knocked him to the ground and punched and kicked him, prosecutors charged in an indictment returned last week.

The victim suffered "open wounds" and scrapes and was left with an apparent imprint from a shoe on the right side of his face, according to FBI affidavits.

The victim said one of the men threatened to kill him if he didn't pay, according to the FBI.

The affidavits — filed in August in connection with the beating — suggest the attack was linked to an organized criminal enterprise in Chicago's Chinatown. The enterprises, in Chinese communities in several major cities, use intimidation and violence to collect debts from gambling, loan-sharking, drug trafficking, and business and personal financial deals, the FBI said.

One of the six charged was identified as Jinhuang "Benny" Zheng, 31, an owner of a restaurant supply company in Indianapolis that was owed the $40,000. A warrant has been issued for his arrest, according to court records.

Two other men charged in the recent indictment -- Bing Liang "Michael" Chen, 26, and Daniel Zhu, 19, both of Chicago -- joined with several others to physically assault two other people last November in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood in an attempt to collect a gambling debt owed to a Chinese sports bookmaker, the FBI said.

In addition, Chen was convicted in Cook County for home invasion resulting in injury in October 2009 and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, according to one FBI affidavit. He was paroled in July 2013, the affidavit said.

Also charged in the recent indictment were Mingrui Sun, 20, and Jack Wu, 24, both of Chicago, as well as Sheng Quan "Peter" Dong, 41, no address given.

All six were charged with one count of conspiracy to collect credit by extortion. The five alleged to have taken part in the beating were also charged with one count of extortionate collection of credit by means of violence and threats.

AT 12:23 PM NOVEMBER 24, 2014


The victim of the June beating was an employee of a restaurant with two locations in west suburban Naperville and Lombard, both now closed. The restaurant owed about $40,000 to Zheng's seafood supply business.

In May, Zheng provided Dong with a yellow plastic bag containing evidence of the debt — two bad checks and four invoices that had gone unpaid, the FBI said.

The two recruited Chen, Zhu and Sun to help collect the debt from the victim, according to the affidavits. In return, they would keep half of whatever they collected.


In June, all but Zheng met at Ming Hin Restaurant in Chinatown and agreed to beat him up, the FBI said. The five drove to the Aurora restaurant where the victim then worked, according to the affidavits.

After telling the victim to step outside, the group surrounded him and grabbed him by his shirt collar, according to the affidavits. When the victim tried to run into the restaurant, he was knocked down, beaten and kicked, the FBI said.

The five fled when the beating caught the attention of a passing motorist.

According to the FBI, some of the attack was captured by surveillance cameras. Zhu can be identified in the footage by a tattoo of a dragon on his right arm, the FBI said. The four others were allegedly picked out by the victim in a photo array.

After the beating, Chen recruited Wu for $2,000 to return to the Aurora restaurant with him to try to intimidate the victim into paying the debt, traveling there three times in June and July, according to the affidavits.

On July 9, the two threatened to break the windows of the restaurant if an employee did not give them the victim's phone number, the FBI said. That incident was also caught by surveillance cameras.