On Wednesday 13th July 2022, the Special Task Force (STF) arrested a Chinese national named Johnson (age 27) who ran a pub-bar-casino in Greater Noida. Johnson was arrested with his three accomplices. The Uttar Pradesh police have also arrested 14 other Chinese nationals including a woman. These arrested Chinese people were illegally living in India since 2020.
Four Chinese nationals have been detained by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force’s Noida division. They were all collaborators with Chinese citizen Xue Fei (36), who was operating an illegal club cum guest house in a village outside of Greater Noida despite his visa expired. According to police sources, the accused were part of a hawala racket run by Fei.
The arrested accused have been identified as Ryan, Zeng Haozhe, Zeng Deye, and Johnson. Johnson is the partner of Ravi Natwarlal who owned the guest house from where Xue Fei was arrested. All four detained Chinese people were living in India without a valid Visa. Johnson was absconding since two Chinese nationals, who spent 18 days in the same guest house, were caught without a visa at the Nepal border. Johnson lived in the guest house with his girlfriend who hails from north-eastern India. It was through his girlfriend that Johnson operated a bank account. Now the STF will take him on remand and interrogate him.
According to a report by Amar Ujala, Johnson had forgotten to take a visa in a hurry while absconding. Without a visa, he could not return to China. In such a situation, he was trying to escape from the Indian border to China or any other country but was caught by the STF.
According to a report by the Millenium Post, a senior official of STF said, “Ever since the arrest of Fei last month, we had been picking up people associated with him, and Johnson was found to be the business partner in the illegal club run in Greater Noida village. Names of three more people popped up during interrogation who have also been held by our teams using electronic surveillance. Apart from Johnson, the three were arrested late on Tuesday night while Johnson was nabbed on Wednesday morning.”
The Greater Noida Chinese nationals arrests
On Tuesday 14th June 2022, Noida Police raided a property in Gharbara village, which was revealed to be a Chinese-only club. Almost 20 Chinese nationals residing unlawfully in India utilized this club as a safe haven and gathering place. The police are searching for the jailed Chinese national’s three Indian associates. One of them is Ravi Natwarlal. Fei has consistently mentioned him as one of the Indians who signed the leasing deal for the club’s premises. The recently arrested accused Johnson was the partner of Ravi Natwarlal and Xue Fei.
More Chinese nationals arrested
Fourteen Chinese people, including a woman, were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly unlawfully residing in the country since 2020. They were all employees of a private sector company in Noida Phase 2 and had legitimate passports, but their business visas had expired.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Rajesh S said, “The 14 Chinese nationals were detained by the Sector 49 police station team. The local intelligence unit had information that their visas had expired in 2020 but they had overstayed.” The DCP said the detained persons are not linked to the Greater Noida case.
According to a report by India TV News, the detained Chinese nationals are identified by police as Junhui Yin, Chuanliu Gong, Honglin Qi, Shilong Gang, Jintao Zhang, Tan Yang, Xiaogang Zhao, Yingli Zhang, Zhi Liu, Tao Wang, Dao Lin Zhang, Zhixiao Pan, Huang Yingjie. Feiyan Tang is the only woman detained by the police in this case.
