An Ohio glass maker raided by the feds last year has “deep ties” to China’s communist government, according to reports.
In July 2024, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, working with other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, executed federal search warrants at 28 locations in the Dayton area, including Fuyao Glass America in Moraine.
Fuyao Glass America is a wholly owned subsidiary of China-based Fuyao Glass Industry Group. According to multiple reports after the raid, Fuyao claimed it wasn’t the target of the federal raid, instead saying the investigation centered on some contractors.
However, in the wake of a civil forfeiture complaint that the feds filed against assets tied to an investigation into a possible $126 million money laundering and illegal staffing operation, a new picture is emerging.
According to an ICE release, the 74-page complaint reveals that “multiple suspects” created approximately 40 entities that “facilitate the harboring, transportation and employment of illegal aliens at various factories.”
The feds allege the suspects used the entities to supplement several factories’ workforces, including FGA in Moraine, with people who illegally entered the country, are unlawfully present in the United States or are working without requisite employment authorizations.
The feds allege that many of the workers, mostly of Chinese or Hispanic nationality, were illegally smuggled into the United States, primarily through Mexico. The workers were “encouraged to travel to the Dayton area to be employed by one of the target entities and serve as a workforce at the various factories,” ICE said in the release.
Workers purportedly lived at boarding houses or “family style hotels” that the targets owned. The target entities provided transportation to drive the workers to and from work.
According to the complaint, the “target entities” purportedly participated in money laundering to conceal millions of dollars generated by the workers. Within days of receiving FGA payments, the suspects would transfer substantial amounts of funds between their various limited liability companies.
The feds contend that FGA has paid more than $126 million to the limited liability companies the suspects controlled. Authorities allege that the suspects used the money for their own financial benefit and to purchase real estate, vehicles, and luxury goods.
“We will continue to investigate allegations of unfair labor practices,” ICE HSI Detroit acting Special Agent in Charge Jared Murphey said in a release. “Collaboration across multiple law enforcement agencies helps to ensure accountability for both employers and the workforce.”
According to the Springfield News-Sun, citing federal court documents, 10 days before federal agents raided Fuyao in July 2024, “an untold number of employees not authorized to work in the U.S. stopped coming to work.”
According to the Dayton Daily News, the filing alleges a law enforcement investigation began in December 2019, looking into multiple “business owners originally from China.”
According to a Breitbart News report, Fuyao’s Chinese owners moved to purchase a General Motors glass factory in 2014 after the carmaker shuttered its operation. The owners inked a $200 million deal to operate the Moraine factory.
Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, helped boost the glass maker when their Higher Ground Productions featured it in an Oscar-winning Netflix documentary, “American Factory.”
The company said it would spend $400 million in March to expand its float glass plant’s production capacity in Decatur, Illinois.
In January 2020, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, then-Lt. Governor Jon Husted, now a U.S. senator, and JobsOhio President and Chief Investment Officer J.P. Nauseef joined Fuyao Glass America at its Moraine facility to announce that the company would create 100 new jobs as part of a $46 million investment. Company and Chinese government officials joined the Ohio politicos.
“As Fuyao continues to grow in Ohio, we are not only strengthening our business ties, we are reminded of what can be achieved when people from different countries and cultures work together,” Nauseef said in a release at the time.
By 2020, the company had 2,300 associates at the Moraine facility.
That same year, the National Labor Relations Board investigated Fuyao Glass America. However, the agency said the company wouldn’t be prosecuted for alleged labor violations, Bloomberg Law reported.
