A San Jose couple, Shiu Chau "Alex" Wang, 52, and his wife, Stella "Sue" Wang Chu, 52, pleaded not guilty April 5 in federal court to charges that they solicited $600,000 from two victims after falsely telling them that the couple needed the money to pay tax on an impounded multimillion-dollar inheritance from China.
The couple claimed that they needed money to pay the tax liability on a $10 million to $30 million inheritance coming from Wang's grandfather in China. The couple said the inheritance was being held by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
One of the alleged victims, a former classmate of Alex Wang's at New York Institute of Technology, lent Wang more than $200,000 in June, according to the complaint.
In April, Wang asked San Jose real-estate broker Chaocin Lu for a loan. After she lent him $370,000, Wang wired the money to Taiwan and not the U.S. government as he had said he would do. Wang told Lu that his San Jose home had enough equity to serve as collateral for the loan, but he failed to tell her that he and his wife had borrowed $350,000 against their residence. (Source: Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle, Apr 6, 2007).