StellarCrowandClaude Fable 5.1
439e83a4cb
Second and third rounds on the dossier pipeline, reviewed locally before commit. Retrieval - wayback_pass.py: retries every BLOCKED/DEAD/THIN/ERROR linked source through the Wayback Machine; blocks carry the snapshot date, archive URL and the live verdict. 143 slots retried: 93 fetched, 37 no snapshot, 12 script shells, 1 PDF. - fetch_sources.py: fetch_wayback() helper. - add_extra_sources.py: files staged extra_* finds (web search, not on the DB record) into the store with a provenance note. - Cases re-sourced by web search: 248 (Oslo: Document.no, Avisa Oslo, NRK; the linked Le Parisien piece is case 242 and is marked OFF-CASE), 258 Kharkiv, 260 Singapore, 358 Bangkok, 365 Las Vegas, 388 Verneuil-sur-Seine, 390 Zoersel, 430 Homestead. 341 of 364 cases now hold a fetched article; 11, 66 and 399 have no public text source (podcast, police video, direct victim report). Trimming - auto_trim.py: case-anchored furniture cut for UNTRIMMED blocks. Finds the body run that mentions the case, merges across subheadings and short furniture gaps, drops teasers, share bars, date/URL/caption lines and subscription pitches; refuses pages with no record term or almost no body. 302 blocks trimmed; 16 left on auto-trim-review.md (7 OFF-CASE suspects). Every cut is labelled AUTO-TRIMMED, UNREVIEWED in the dossier; the full extract stays in staging/. Decisions with anchors in trim-decisions-auto.json. - build_cases.py / verify_all.py: banners for auto-trimmed and archived blocks, staged-file check extended to Wayback blocks, flag legend under the record. Detention rule - README "Definitions": the DB field `kidnappings` is the DETENTION violence type (victim, guard, staff or relative held to force submission or execute the theft), distinct from the Kidnapping scenario (taken away and held). - detention-flag-review.md / detention-flag-corrections.json: 40 records reviewed with evidence; 30 set-to-1 proposals accepted by the owner on 2026-09-06 (listed in corrections-approved.md), 10 still open. - apply_detention_wording.py: "Violence Used" in the 70 reviewed summaries now names detention explicitly (62 of 70 labelled), supported by the summary's own text; idempotent; supersedes the batch scripts' wording. Worklist and docs - sofia-worklist.md: 248 decisions, detention rule item replacing the old "no abduction" item, fresh-search section for the textless cases. - README-START-HERE.md: progress notes, run commands, next steps. - Bug fixed in passing: Wayback blocks stored in-memory text with carriage returns; now stored as read back from disk. verify_all.py PASSES (2321 checks). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GZZENdTLzNGsbNy4DyF1yt
158 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
158 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
================================================================================================
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CASE 190 | 3 Family Members and a Nanny | October 27, 2024 | USA
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================================================================================================
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DATABASE RECORD
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id 190
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date October 27, 2024
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original_date October 27, 2024
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year 2024
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month 10
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quarter 2024-Q4
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victim 3 Family Members and a Nanny
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location Chicago, Illinois
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country USA
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scenario Home Invasion
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description 6 men accused of kidnapping family from Chicago townhouse and forcing a transfer of $15 million in cryptocurrency
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kidnappings 1
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violence_torture 1
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drugs_alcohol 0
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weapons 0
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theft 1
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life_taken 0
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money_wanted $15M
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coin_type crypto
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reports ChicagoTribune
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notes Six men, pretended to have accidentally hit the garage, kidnapped 3 family members and a nanny from a Chicago townhouse in October and forcing a transfer of about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets before releasing them five days later
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has_processed_date 1
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created_at 2025-11-13 05:44:45
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(flag legend: 'kidnappings' is the DETENTION flag — 1 when the victim was held against
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their will at any point, tied, locked in, held at gunpoint or taken away; it is NOT the
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same as the 'Kidnapping' scenario, which means taken away and held. See README, Definitions.)
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AI SUMMARY [generated at bulk import, NOT verified against sources]
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**Victim:** 3 Family Members and a Nanny
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**Attackers:** Unknown number of perpetrators
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**Attack Method:** Home Invasion - victim kidnapped
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**Violence Used:** Physical violence
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**Crypto Stolen:** $15M in crypto
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**Status:** Investigation ongoing
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LINKED SOURCES
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[url] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/11/chicago-kidnapping-cryptocurrency/
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NOTES ON THIS FILE
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* matched to sheet row 191: exact match on victim + year, unique on both sides
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ARTICLE 1
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Source ChicagoTribune
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URL https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/11/chicago-kidnapping-cryptocurrency/
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Origin reported_K&R sheet, row 191, column "Articles"
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Length 6,315 chars
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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6 men accused of kidnapping family from Chicago townhouse and forcing a transfer of $15 million in cryptocurrency
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In a composite image from a filing in U.S. District Court, suspects alleged to be kidnapping suspects Shengnen Jiang, left, and Fan Zhang, enter an Airbnb on South Harlem Avenue in Forest Park in October 2024. (U.S. District Court filing)
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In a composite image from a filing in U.S. District Court, suspects alleged to be kidnapping suspects Shengnen Jiang, left, and Fan Zhang, enter an Airbnb on South Harlem Avenue in Forest Park in October 2024. (U.S. District Court filing)
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By Rebecca Johnson | rjohnson@chicagotribune.com | Chicago Tribune
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UPDATED: February 12, 2025 at 11:23 AM CST
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Six men are accused of kidnapping three family members and a nanny from a Chicago townhouse in October and forcing a transfer of about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets before releasing them five days later near a dry cleaners, according to recently unsealed court records.
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The five-day kidnapping is detailed in a 44-page FBI affidavit unsealed last week. Agents collected evidence — including receipts, unused zip ties and surveillance footage — from rental cars, cryptocurrency wallets, a suburban Airbnb and various fast-food restaurants and retail stores, court records show.
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One of the alleged kidnappers, 34-year-old Zehuan Wei, was arrested Jan. 17 while trying to enter the United States from Mexico at a California border crossing. He made an initial court appearance in California.
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Five other men are charged with kidnapping in the case: Fan Zhang, Huajing Yan, Shengnan Jiang, Shiqiang Lian and Ye Cao. Some of them are believed to have taken flights from Mexico to China last month after Wei’s arrest, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit.
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The court records do not say where the suspects are from but indicated that some held U.S. drivers licenses. At least Zhang and Wei also had Chinese passports, documents show.
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Four people kidnapped
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Authorities were first notified of the kidnapping after a father, referred to as “Individual A” in the affidavit, got a call from his son on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, around 1 p.m. Oct. 27 alerting him that the group had been kidnapped. The victims also aren’t named in the court records and are referred to as “Victims A-D.”
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The man’s son, who had moved into a Chicago townhouse a couple weeks prior, told him he was kidnapped with two of his family members and a nanny and that the kidnappers demanded a ransom payment or they’d be killed, the affidavit says. The kidnappers demanded the father send Bitcoin or Ethereum, popular cryptocurrencies, according to the affidavit.
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A man wearing a hat and glasses had knocked on the family’s door in Chicago, claiming to have accidentally damaged their garage door, the victims later told the FBI after they were released. When the door opened, multiple unknown men with guns grabbed the family members and nanny, the affidavit says. The son told authorities he was grabbed after getting out of the shower.
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The kidnappers immediately asked the son to conduct cryptocurrency transactions, and he said they drove him around multiple times to make additional transactions, the affidavit says. They later made independent transactions after gaining access to his accounts, totaling about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets, according to the affidavit.
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The kidnappers put the victims into a white Ford van and drove them for about an hour to an Airbnb in what the FBI later learned was in Forest Park, the affidavit says. After one night, the victims were taken to a different house and were eventually released on the afternoon of Nov. 1. They walked to a nearby dry cleaners, called an Uber and went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the affidavit says.
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The son said he was hit on the head with a gun — which he later said may have been fake — but that otherwise they were treated fine, the affidavit said. The victims remembered eating McDonald’s, Culver’s, Subway and PF Chang’s. One of the victims also recalled that the suspects spoke both Mandarin and Spanish.
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Surveillance footage reviewed
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The FBI reviewed surveillance footage from the Forest Park Airbnb, which showed the alleged kidnappers arriving in a white van and talking on a cell phone. The FBI believed, based on that footage, that there were at least six offenders, the affidavit says.
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They compared the footage to Cao’s picture taken by U.S. Custom’s and Border Protection, Jiang’s Illinois driver’s license picture and California driver’s license pictures for Zhang, Yan, Lian and Wei.
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Agents found a water bottle, baby wipes and unused white zip ties inside of the white Ford van, which they tracked down to a Chicago auto leasing company. They also found DNA swabs, receipts, clothing, medical masks, cigarettes, an AirPod case and latent prints inside a white Chrysler Pacifica that Wei rented Oct. 29 in Hoffman Estates.
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They also spotted some of the kidnappers in surveillance footage at a McDonald’s in far northwest suburban Hampshire, a Culver’s in Berwyn, a BP gas station in Oak Park and Target stores in Streamwood and Schaumburg during the kidnapping time frame, the affidavit says. The son and a family member were able to identify some of the kidnappers in a photo array, according to the affidavit.
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By analyzing travel records, authorities learned that Wei and Zhang flew from O’Hare International Airport to Las Vegas on Nov. 1. Lian, Cao, Yan and Jiang were believed to have left Chicago for Los Angeles the same day, the affidavit says.
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The six men were charged Dec. 13 with kidnapping.
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$9 million unaccounted for
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Customs and Border Protection arrested Wei on Jan. 17 while he tried to enter the United States from Mexico at the Otay Mesa, California, border crossing, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit. The affidavit was filed Jan. 24 in support of a search warrant for two cellphones Wei carried with him. He also had a California driver’s license, a Chinese passport and $661 in cash.
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The FBI later learned that Jiang and Yan had boarded the same flight departing Tijuana, Mexico, for Beijing, at about 8:30 a.m. Jan. 19. Lian boarded a flight from Tijuana to Beijing the next morning, the affidavit says.
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About $9 million of the cryptocurrency remains unaccounted for, according to the affidavit.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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FETCHED ARTICLE 1 [AUTO-TRIMMED — UNREVIEWED]
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!! Furniture was cut by a script keyed on this case's record, not by a person.
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!! It may still carry passages about OTHER cases from a round-up article.
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!! The full page extract is kept in staging/ if a cut needs revisiting.
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Source chicagotribune.com
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URL https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/02/11/chicago-kidnapping-cryptocurrency/
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Field url
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Retrieved 2026-09-05T12:49:57+00:00 via raw HTTP retrieval, deterministic extraction (HTTP 200)
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Language unknown
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Kept paragraphs headline [0] + 52-73 of 75
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Length 5,750 chars
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Integrity sha256 3ace96a0859cd987f0bea3532c9c935a3103a5b071fb512ea661b4355c1b8702
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Trimmed AUTO-TRIMMED, unreviewed: kept paragraphs 52-73 plus headline [0]; dropped 51 leading and 1 trailing paragraphs. Case-term hits on page: 16.
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Caveat retrieved from a live page on the date above. Unlike text copied
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from the spreadsheet, there is no second copy to hash it against.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ORIGINAL (unknown, verbatim as retrieved)
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6 men accused of kidnapping family from Chicago townhouse
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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
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Six men are accused of kidnapping three family members and a nanny from a Chicago townhouse in October and forcing a transfer of about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets before releasing them five days later near a dry cleaners, according to recently unsealed court records.
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The five-day kidnapping is detailed in a 44-page FBI affidavit unsealed last week. Agents collected evidence — including receipts, unused zip ties and surveillance footage — from rental cars, cryptocurrency wallets, a suburban Airbnb and various fast-food restaurants and retail stores, court records show.
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One of the alleged kidnappers, 34-year-old Zehuan Wei, was arrested Jan. 17 while trying to enter the United States from Mexico at a California border crossing. He made an initial court appearance in California.
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Five other men are charged with kidnapping in the case: Fan Zhang, Huajing Yan, Shengnan Jiang, Shiqiang Lian and Ye Cao. Some of them are believed to have taken flights from Mexico to China last month after Wei’s arrest, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit.
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The court records do not say where the suspects are from but indicated that some held U.S. drivers licenses. At least Zhang and Wei also had Chinese passports, documents show.
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Authorities were first notified of the kidnapping after a father, referred to as “Individual A” in the affidavit, got a call from his son on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, around 1 p.m. Oct. 27 alerting him that the group had been kidnapped. The victims also aren’t named in the court records and are referred to as “Victims A-D.”
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The man’s son, who had moved into a Chicago townhouse a couple weeks prior, told him he was kidnapped with two of his family members and a nanny and that the kidnappers demanded a ransom payment or they’d be killed, the affidavit says. The kidnappers demanded the father send Bitcoin or Ethereum, popular cryptocurrencies, according to the affidavit.
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A man wearing a hat and glasses had knocked on the family’s door in Chicago, claiming to have accidentally damaged their garage door, the victims later told the FBI after they were released. When the door opened, multiple unknown men with guns grabbed the family members and nanny, the affidavit says. The son told authorities he was grabbed after getting out of the shower.
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The kidnappers immediately asked the son to conduct cryptocurrency transactions, and he said they drove him around multiple times to make additional transactions, the affidavit says. They later made independent transactions after gaining access to his accounts, totaling about $15 million in cryptocurrency assets, according to the affidavit.
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The kidnappers put the victims into a white Ford van and drove them for about an hour to an Airbnb in what the FBI later learned was in Forest Park, the affidavit says. After one night, the victims were taken to a different house and were eventually released on the afternoon of Nov. 1. They walked to a nearby dry cleaners, called an Uber and went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the affidavit says.
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The son said he was hit on the head with a gun — which he later said may have been fake — but that otherwise they were treated fine, the affidavit said. The victims remembered eating McDonald’s, Culver’s, Subway and PF Chang’s. One of the victims also recalled that the suspects spoke both Mandarin and Spanish.
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The FBI reviewed surveillance footage from the Forest Park Airbnb, which showed the alleged kidnappers arriving in a white van and talking on a cell phone. The FBI believed, based on that footage, that there were at least six offenders, the affidavit says.
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They compared the footage to Cao’s picture taken by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Jiang’s Illinois driver’s license picture and California driver’s license pictures for Zhang, Yan, Lian and Wei.
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Agents found a water bottle, baby wipes and unused white zip ties inside of the white Ford van, which they tracked down to a Chicago auto leasing company. They also found DNA swabs, receipts, clothing, medical masks, cigarettes, an AirPod case and latent prints inside a white Chrysler Pacifica that Wei rented Oct. 29 in Hoffman Estates.
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They also spotted some of the kidnappers in surveillance footage at a McDonald’s in far northwest suburban Hampshire, a Culver’s in Berwyn, a BP gas station in Oak Park and Target stores in Streamwood and Schaumburg during the kidnapping time frame, the affidavit says. The son and a family member were able to identify some of the kidnappers in a photo array, according to the affidavit.
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By analyzing travel records, authorities learned that Wei and Zhang flew from O’Hare International Airport to Las Vegas on Nov. 1. Lian, Cao, Yan and Jiang were believed to have left Chicago for Los Angeles the same day, the affidavit says.
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The six men were charged Dec. 13 with kidnapping.
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Customs and Border Protection arrested Wei on Jan. 17 while he tried to enter the United States from Mexico at the Otay Mesa, California, border crossing, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit. The affidavit was filed Jan. 24 in support of a search warrant for two cellphones Wei carried with him. He also had a California driver’s license, a Chinese passport and $661 in cash.
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The FBI later learned that Jiang and Yan had boarded the same flight departing Tijuana, Mexico, for Beijing, at about 8:30 a.m. Jan. 19. Lian boarded a flight from Tijuana to Beijing the next morning, the affidavit says.
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About $9 million of the cryptocurrency remains unaccounted for, according to the affidavit.
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An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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================================================================================================
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generated from attacks-export-Gart-website.json + reported_K&R | case 190
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================================================================================================
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