Agents Rescue Kidnapped Son of Taiwan Man

Aided by police in China and Taiwan, FBI agents burst into a darkened Temple City house early Monday and rescued a wealthy Taiwanese businessman’s son who had been kidnapped from his home and held 18 days for $1.5 million in ransom.

Johnny Kuan Nan Chen, a 17-year-old student at San Marino High School, was found with his hands and feet chained and his eyes and mouth covered by duct tape.

Despite the ordeal, Chen was in “good shape,” the FBI said. After an examination at a local hospital, he was reunited with his mother.

Two suspects were arrested during the post-midnight raid and later confessed to the kidnapping, the FBI said. Two others, including the alleged ringleader, are still being sought.

Two men also were taken into custody by officers from the Ministry of Public Security in Fuzhou, China, where $500,000 of the ransom was paid. They will be tried there under Chinese law.

Timothy P. McNally, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, thanked police officials in China and Taiwan for their help in cracking the case.

Chen is the son of Fu Shun Chen, owner of the Landwin Corp., which has offices in Taiwan and Temple City.

He was abducted at gunpoint about 8 p.m. Dec. 15 as he drove his car into the garage of the family’s home in San Marino.

Authorities said both of his parents were in Taiwan at the time, and that Chen was staying in the house alone.

Two days later, the FBI said, the kidnappers telephoned Chen’s father in Taiwan and made their ransom demand. They directed him to bring the money to an address in Fujian province in China, of which Fuzhou is the capital.

In what McNally said was a courageous move, the father immediately notified San Marino police. The FBI, the National Police Agency of Taiwan and the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China joined in the investigation.

One of the most crucial leads in the case came from a neighbor who jotted down the license plate of a suspicious car parked in front of the Chen home early one morning four days before the abduction.

The two men inside the car appeared to be watching the house, she later told the FBI. Agents questioned the car owner’s son, who led them to the first suspect, a former coworker who had borrowed the car.

Agents also were able to trace the ransom calls to a cellular phone that was used in Los Angeles but registered to a second suspect who lived in New York. A hidden electronic tracking device was planted on the New York suspect’s vehicle.

Cross-checks of telephone calls made by the two suspects led investigators to a Monterey Park apartment, where a search turned up a stun gun and utility bills for the house in Temple City.

On Year’s Eve, federal agents placed the house under 24-hour surveillance after they determined that a cellular phone belonging to a suspect was being used inside.

They maintained the round-the-clock watch until early Monday, when Chinese authorities flashed word that Chen’s father had paid the $500,000.

Simultaneously, Chinese police arrested two men who reportedly received the ransom, and the FBI, aided by San Marino police, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and federal immigration agents, stormed the house in Temple City.

Neighbors said dozens of law enforcement officers, wearing flak jackets and carrying automatic weapons, invaded the tiny house about 1:30 a.m.

The two men arrested there were Xu Lin Wang of Temple City and Xue Nan Wang of New York City. The two fugitives were identified as Tian Wu Wong and Xiong Zi Wang. All were described as Chinese nationals from Fujian province.

According to an FBI affidavit, the two suspects in custody said they were recruited by Tian Wu Wong. They said he had been been planning the kidnapping for at least two months.

They were being held on hostage-taking charges pending a detention hearing before a federal magistrate this morning.

There were no signs of Chen or his parents at their San Marino home Monday evening.

Neighbors said they had known something was wrong since before Christmas when a procession of unmarked law enforcement vehicles began appearing in front of the Chen house.

“Almost everyone around here knew something had happened to the boy,” said one neighbor.

“I understand his mother spends a lot of time in Taiwan with the father. The boy seemed to be alone a lot,” said another neighbor.

The FBI’s McNally and U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas went out of their way to commend Chinese authorities for their assistance.

Cooperation between the two countries on law enforcement matters has been mixed.

In politically sensitive cases, such as the Justice Department probe into illicit foreign campaign contributions, Beijing has not been very helpful, according to U.S. government sources.

In non-political cases, however, the People’s Republic has shown a willingness to cooperate with U.S. authorities. The Chinese have allowed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration to establish liaison offices on the mainland in a joint effort to stem the flow of narcotics and curb other smuggling.

The FBI does not yet have a liaison office in Beijing, although Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh raised the issue during Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit to Washington in 1997.

In a similar but unrelated case, six Chinese nationals were arraigned in Pasadena on Monday on charges of kidnapping a 9-year-old South Pasadena girl for a $200,000 ransom. The six were arrested last week after one of them picked up the ransom money and dropped the girl off in Rosemead.

The child had been abducted when three masked gunmen invaded the family home Dec. 22.

Peng Giao, David Chiu, Peter Loo, Chi Mong Szeto, Danny Chuo Wong and Xian Lin are accused of home invasion robbery, residential burglary, kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping a child under 14, false imprisonment and assault with a firearm. They are being held in lieu of $1 million bail each.

The two cases have one common element: In each incident, the victim’s family contacted the police promptly.

Sgt. William Howell, a member of the sheriff’s Asian Organized Crime Unit, said in an interview that kidnappings for ransom occur with some frequency in the Chinese American community. He speculated that fewer than a third of those crimes are reported to police.

“Usually, the families don’t report them, but when they do, we’ve had some real success,” he said.

The San Gabriel Valley, home to many affluent Chinese immigrants, has attracted all sorts of criminals, including kidnappers, Howell said.

Among those often targeted, he said, are so-called parachute children, whose wealthy parents reside in Hong Kong or Taiwan while they live on their own here in expensive houses, attending highly regarded local schools.

“My sense is there is a lot more of these kidnappings occurring nowadays, but very few are reported to authorities,” said South Pasadena Police Chief Michael Berkow.

Marina Tse, a Chinese American community leader and member of the State Board of Education, said kidnapping children of the rich is a popular crime in Taiwan.

“The same thing seems to be happening now in the San Gabriel Valley,” she said.

Tse said tradition also helps criminals. Chinese Americans still tend to deal in cash, preferring to keep their assets liquid outside a bank and their jewelry near at hand.

Times staff writer Caitlin Liu contributed to this article.