{"id":1037,"date":"2026-07-23T10:07:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:07:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:07:36","slug":"how-a-chinese-immigrant-driver-got-entangled-in-a-drug-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1037","title":{"rendered":"How a Chinese Immigrant Driver Got Entangled in a Drug Bust"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At 2:30 A.M.<\/em> on January 22, 2025, Wenjian Zhuo left his home in Queens, climbed into his Toyota Sienna, and began heading north to pick up a passenger almost four hundred miles away. Zhuo, who was thirty-one, had emigrated from China several years earlier and tried a few different jobs\u2014at one point, he was a sales assistant in a pharmacy\u2014before becoming a driver in the spring of 2024. At first he drove for Uber, but then he saw other Chinese drivers building their own businesses by advertising on RedNote, the Chinese social-media app. Zhuo followed their lead, setting up his own RedNote page.<\/p>\n

Read more There\u2019s Nothing Provincial About This Three-Volume Icelandic Saga<\/a><\/p>\n

Chinese tourist agencies also began sending him customers, and soon he was busy every day. He picked up international students at the Taft School, in Connecticut, took tourists to Niagara Falls, and chauffeured an executive\u2019s family through Boston and Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2024, when the Chinese rapper Vinida Weng arrived in New York to perform in Central Park, he picked her up at the airport. \u201cI\u2019ve met people from all over the world, and listened to all kinds of stories,\u201d he posted in Mandarin on RedNote. \u201cIt\u2019s also made me look at my own city with fresh eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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His latest job had come in the night before, in the usual way\u2014a potential customer had sent him a message in Mandarin on WeChat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019d like to book a vehicle. It\u2019s long-distance,\u201d the customer wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many people and how many pieces of luggage?\u201d Zhuo replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne person, about six to seven boxes,\u201d the customer wrote.<\/p>\n

They agreed on a price for the trip\u2014nine hundred and forty dollars, including gas and tolls\u2014and the customer sent him a deposit of a hundred dollars and the pickup and drop-off locations. Zhuo didn\u2019t look closely at the addresses, in northern New York State and midtown Manhattan. He thought that the passenger was likely an international student.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Zhuo, following directions on his phone, travelled north on I-87. Snow covered the trees along the highway, and the farther he drove, the lower the temperature dipped. After about three hundred miles, he found himself in New York\u2019s North Country, near the Canadian border. Zhuo speaks little English, and he could not read many of the signs he passed, but after heading west on New York State Route 37 for a while, he noticed there was something odd about the stretch of the highway he was on: almost every establishment advertised itself with a leaf. Although Zhuo didn\u2019t realize it, he was on a Mohawk reservation, part of a territory called Akwesasne that straddles Canada and the United States. After New York legalized marijuana, in 2021, the reservation became a popular place to open a cannabis shop, in part because the tribe\u2019s licensing rules were easier to navigate than the state\u2019s.<\/p>\n

About seven hours after leaving home, Zhuo arrived at the address he had been given\u201418 State Route 37. He was surprised to find that he was at a gas station. Zhuo tried to rest in his car, and then, at exactly 11 A.M.<\/em>, the pickup time, he wrote to his customer in Mandarin: \u201cAre you outside?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, right away,\u201d his contact replied. But no one showed up, and when Zhuo texted again, the contact responded, \u201cBro, my friend overslept. He is packing.\u201d After another forty minutes, Zhuo\u2019s contact wrote to him, \u201cLet me know how much you charge for the waiting fee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him to get ready faster because I need to drive seven hours back,\u201d Zhuo replied.<\/p>\n

Eventually, around 2 P.M.<\/em>, a man wearing sunglasses and a Buffalo Bills ski hat showed up in a white pickup truck. Zhuo had expected his passenger would be Chinese, but this man was not; Zhuo had no way of communicating with him beyond a few words. The man directed Zhuo to follow him and drove a short distance to a house, where he loaded twelve items from a garage into Zhuo\u2019s minivan: cardboard boxes, a suitcase, two bags, and a plastic bin with an orange top.<\/p>\n

As the items filled the back of the van, Zhuo started clearing off the front passenger seat. \u201cYou sit here,\u201d he told the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the man replied. \u201cI am not going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cO.K., O.K.\u201d Zhuo said, then called the man who\u2019d hired him. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to New York?\u201d he asked in Mandarin. \u201cOnly these things are going to New York?\u201d<\/p>\n

The customer confirmed that this was accurate. As Zhuo started driving, the two kept talking, with a camera in the rearview mirror recording the conversation. \u201cYou\u2019ve got all the stuff\u2014don\u2019t go messing with it!\u201d the customer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by messing with it?\u201d Zhuo replied. \u201cI am heading back now. Don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty seconds after Zhuo hung up with the customer, he called a friend, a fellow-driver in New York City. \u201cLet me ask you something,\u201d Zhuo said as he drove. \u201cI got a situation.\u201d He explained where he was and what had happened, then asked his friend if he thought the boxes contained \u201canything not clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery hard to say,\u201d his friend said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what should I do now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow am I supposed to know? Why don\u2019t you open it and inspect it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhuo said that he would not \u201cdare open up other people\u2019s stuff,\u201d and the two discussed the situation. \u201cCould it be marijuana in the car?\u201d Zhuo asked. \u201cWhat does marijuana even smell like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMarijuana smells like marijuana,\u201d his friend said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did smell something kind of fragrant,\u201d Zhuo said.<\/p>\n

He had never smoked marijuana, he would later say, and he had not been exposed to it while growing up in China, where it is illegal. \u201cShit, I\u2019m just feeling unsure about this right now,\u201d he told his friend. \u201cWhen I came over earlier, while waiting, I felt that something was off.\u201d But he had just driven nearly seven hours. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d he said. Then \u201cthis non-Chinese guy walked over\u201d and \u201chanded the box of stuff to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDamn, there might be something in there,\u201d his friend said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s this much product, wouldn\u2019t it be worth tens of millions? If I fucking sell it, could I then go back to China and retire?\u201d Zhuo said with a nervous grin. He put on a blinker and turned back onto State Route 37.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you sell it, you could end up rotting in prison,\u201d his friend said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d Zhuo asked, \u201cwhat should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow should I know? I don\u2019t know. I never had this kind of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The longer the two friends spoke, the more uneasy Zhuo seemed to become. As he drove, he was surrounded by images of leaves once again, on billboards and in storefronts. Behind him, the luggage and boxes were stacked so high that they were visible to passing cars. \u201cI\u2019m going to find a place in a bit, dammit, pull over and see what it is,\u201d Zhuo told his friend.<\/p>\n

He also toyed with the idea that he could stop thinking about what might be in the boxes. \u201cI feel like if I am not aware, if I don\u2019t open it,\u201d he said, \u201cit is O.K. If I am unaware, it\u2019s fine. If there really is something\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to go hire a lawyer,\u201d his friend said.<\/p>\n

Some thirty minutes after Zhuo began driving, he glanced in his side-view mirror and saw a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle\u2014a white Chevy Tahoe\u2014behind him. \u201cHow could this be?\u201d he muttered to himself. He heard its siren and pulled to the side of the road.<\/p>\n

He would later learn that Border Patrol agents had been surveilling him for hours, starting even before he had arrived at the gas station. That morning, James Russell, an agent in an unmarked car not far from the border, had \u201cwitnessed a van driven by what appeared to be a male of Asian descent,\u201d as he later put it. Russell ran the license plate and learned that the vehicle was from New York City. \u201cThat piqued my interest,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have a single male driving a minivan. We\u2019ve recently had numerous minivans used in smuggling events for humans.\u201d Later, two other agents, who had been notified to be on the lookout for Zhuo\u2019s Toyota Sienna, spotted him after he picked up the boxes and luggage.<\/p>\n

After pulling over, Zhuo opened his window, and one of the agents, Clinton Joseph, approached. Joseph would later say that a strong scent of marijuana was emanating from the minivan.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello, sir,\u201d Zhuo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you by yourself?\u201d Joseph asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo sorry, my English no good,\u201d Zhuo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have I.D. on you?\u201d Joseph asked. \u201cWhat\u2019s in the back here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhuo pulled out his driver\u2019s license, then reached for his phone, opened Google Translate, and spoke in Mandarin. The phone translated: \u201cA customer asked me to come over and pick up something and take it to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph asked him to hand over his keys; Zhuo complied. The agents brought him to a Border Patrol station, where two other agents interrogated him, asking questions through a translator after he waived his right to an attorney. \u201cThe amount of narcotics that you had in your vehicle tonight is unacceptable,\u201d one of the agents, David Gottschall, told him. \u201cAnd the smell of marijuana is obvious.\u201d He added, \u201cYou\u2019re under arrest, and you\u2019re going to be charged with a significant crime.\u201d Gottschall seemed to suspect that Zhuo was part of a major trafficking operation. \u201cWhat you had in your car is incredibly valuable to people, and there\u2019s a lot of other people who are involved, but they\u2019re not here,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only person who can tell me about them is you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI want to tell you everything I know,\u201d Zhuo said. He offered access to the cellphone he had used to communicate with his customer and to video cameras on the inside and outside of his vehicle, explaining that the footage would show the man who had given him the boxes. \u201cYou can see that I told you the truth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Zhuo also volunteered to go undercover: \u201cI\u2019m thinking, if you wanted to catch the person who ordered this, maybe I can try to go to the delivery place and I will ask him to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that sounds a little too dangerous, and we don\u2019t want to put you in harm\u2019s way,\u201d the other agent said.<\/p>\n

Zhuo was taken to Clinton County Jail, in Plattsburgh. There, he called his partner, Minxing, whom he lived with in Queens; she was eight months pregnant with their first child. Minxing recalled, \u201cHe was so positive, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m coming home in a few days.\u2019\u00a0\u201d That did not happen. As Zhuo eventually learned, the luggage and boxes he had been transporting contained more than two hundred pounds of marijuana, packaged in two hundred and eleven vacuum-sealed bags. Customs and Border Protection agents seized his Toyota Sienna, and a D.E.A. agent filed a criminal complaint in federal court charging him with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. If convicted, he would face a maximum punishment of twenty years in prison.<\/p>\n

Smuggling has a long history in Akwesasne, earning it the moniker \u201cthe contraband capital.\u201d The St. Lawrence River, which runs through the territory and divides the U.S. and Canada, makes the border there especially difficult to police. During Prohibition, bootleggers brought alcohol into the U.S. by boat; in the eighties and nineties, cigarettes were smuggled north to evade Canadian taxes. The area has a high rate of poverty, and, for some, smuggling became a way of life. James Russell, the Border Patrol agent who first spied Zhuo\u2019s van, later spoke in court about the phenomenon of cross-border smuggling through Akwesasne.<\/p>\n

\u201cTobacco, narcotics, people, firearms\u2014if it can be smuggled and someone can make a dollar off it, you name it, it\u2019s smuggled across there,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s multiple cross-border roads that are unguarded, and it\u2019s just constant traffic.\u201d And when smugglers cross the border in boats, he added, \u201cwe can\u2019t do anything about it, just watch it go back and forth.\u201d Marijuana trafficking continued even after the drug was legalized in New York State. Joseph, the agent who stopped Zhuo, said that in his career he\u2019d found it \u201cin railroad cars, mail trucks, pickup trucks, oil trucks or oil drums, backpacks, persons, boats.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Border Patrol agents who apprehended Zhuo were assigned to the region known as the Swanton Sector, which includes nearly three hundred miles of the U.S.-Canada border, from northeast New York to New Hampshire. Though illegal crossings of the southern border have received far more attention, the number of people caught trying to cross the northern border also spiked in recent years. In the year leading up to October, 2024, Swanton Sector agents apprehended nearly twenty thousand people\u2014more than the previous seventeen years put together. Sixty-five per cent were from India, twelve per cent were from Mexico, and the rest came from nearly a hundred different countries. On the same day that Zhuo was arrested, two men involved in a human-smuggling operation were trading messages on WhatsApp about four people who needed to be picked up near the border in Clinton County. Both men were later arrested and pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n

Prior to his arrest, Zhuo had no experience with the criminal-justice system, and he had only one person trying to help him navigate it\u2014Minxing Zou. She had met Zhuo about twenty years earlier when they were classmates in the same middle school, in China\u2019s Fujian Province. In 2010, when she was a teen-ager, she and her mother had moved to Queens to join her father, who was working as a cook at a Chinese restaurant. Though Minxing had studied English in China, she felt lost in an American high school: \u201cI couldn\u2019t understand anything,\u201d she recalled. To improve her English, she listened to NPR\u2019s \u201cMorning Edition\u201d on her commute to a local public school. The strategy helped. She went on to City College, finishing in 2016, and to graduate school in optometry, eventually working at a city clinic in the Bronx.<\/p>\n

She and Zhuo reconnected when she went back to China for a visit in the summer of 2016. His family owned a factory, and he ran a fabric store, but before long Zhuo decided to join her in Queens. A year after, the two married in China, and he obtained a green card. They later separated for a time and divorced, but after a year or so they got back together. \u201cOne reason that I really like him is he\u2019s very positive,\u201d Minxing told me. \u201cHe has a plan for the future.\u201d In November of 2024, he incorporated an L.L.C. to start a travel company\u2014he called it City Walk\u2014that would provide concierge services for tourists, planning itineraries and purchasing tickets to places like the Statue of Liberty. When he learned that he was going to become a father, she said, he seemed \u201cto have endless energy.\u201d He recalls driving about seven thousand miles a month, sometimes returning home for only a few hours of sleep, trying to earn and save as much money as possible before the baby\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

Now, from the Clinton County Jail, he would call and give her updates on his situation. Not long after he was arrested, he recognized another person who had been brought into the jail: the man who had loaded the boxes into his car. His name was Eric Montour, he was Mohawk, and he lived north of the border. About thirty minutes before he had met Zhuo, he had driven from Canada into the U.S. (The video-recording system in Zhuo\u2019s van had captured images of Montour and his truck\u2019s Ontario license plate, allowing law enforcement to identify him.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Montour had been questioned by law enforcement, he did not divulge details about the marijuana operation he was involved in. Soon after entering Clinton County jail, he was recorded on a jail phone line speaking to someone about receiving financial help to get out as long as he kept his mouth shut.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t talk\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. you gotta go finish it out,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n

Montour replied, \u201cBro, I wouldn\u2019t do that to you, man. You know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On February 4, 2025, Zhuo and Montour had video detention hearings inside the jail, one after the other, on the same matter: whether each of them would be released. Zhuo was represented by an attorney from Flushing, Queens, whom Minxing had found, who argued that Zhuo \u201chad no idea what was being loaded\u201d into his minivan and that Zhuo\u2019s decision to retain private counsel reflected his \u201cseriousness and earnestness\u201d: he could be trusted to return to court for \u201ceach and every\u201d court date. The federal prosecutor, Douglas G. Collyer, argued that Zhuo should not be freed because of the seriousness of his alleged crime: the prosecutor estimated that Zhuo had been carrying \u201cabout half a million dollars in marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhuo was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., but, Collyer told the court, \u201cthere is an immigration detainer for the defendant.\u201d If he were released on bail, Collyer said, ICE<\/em> would pick him up, and \u201cgiven the actions of the new Administration, removal from the U.S. is a significantly likely outcome.\u201d The judge denied bail to Zhuo.<\/p>\n

Read more Maine\u2019s Mad Scramble to Replace Graham Platner<\/a><\/p>\n

Montour, who went next, was represented by Donald T. Kinsella, a well-known litigator who had previously overseen the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office for the Northern District\u2014the same office now prosecuting Montour. Montour, who was forty-seven, had been arrested multiple times in Canada, including once when he led police officers on a high-speed chase and was found to have a strong odor of alcohol on his breath. \u201cI\u2019m not opposed to the idea of release in this case,\u201d the prosecutor told the judge, as long as the defendant goes \u201cfrom jail to an inpatient treatment facility.\u201d The judge agreed. Three weeks later, Montour was released from jail to enter a rehab program fifty miles away.<\/p>\n

In the weeks after Zhuo\u2019s arrest, Minxing, who was scheduled to give birth in mid-February, tried not to cry. \u201cWhen the mother cries, the baby can feel your emotions,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t pass that bad energy to her.\u201d She called the jail where Zhuo was being held and begged officials to bring him to Queens to witness their baby\u2019s arrival, offering to pay any expenses. She recalled, \u201cI told them, \u2018This might be the only child we\u2019re going to have. I don\u2019t want him to miss this moment.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

On February 18, 2025, Minxing gave birth to a daughter they named Selene, at a hospital in Flushing, Queens. Her pleas to Zhuo\u2019s jailers to send him down for the birth had not worked. (\u201cThey said sorry, they couldn\u2019t do anything,\u201d she recalls.) Her mother helped care for her newborn, and she continued trying to free Zhuo. She fired the attorney she had hired to represent him\u2014she did not think he was fighting hard enough\u2014and hired another, Todd Henry, who had been recommended by a friend of Zhuo\u2019s father. In May, a grand jury indicted Zhuo for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and a second crime: conspiracy to possess and distribute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Zhuo had advised Minxing to use ChatGPT to try to educate herself about the U.S. legal system, and she had taken to asking the chatbot questions like \u201cInitial hearing, what does it mean?\u201d She would then use the information she obtained to share thoughts and suggestions with Henry about her partner\u2019s case. She could tell that some of her messages irked Henry\u2014\u201cBeing on ChatGPT does not make you a lawyer,\u201d he would say\u2014but she continued to rely on ChatGPT, which she came to think of as a \u201cfake lawyer.\u201d \u201cThe fake lawyer can\u2019t yell at me, so I can ask anything I want without feeling stupid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Throughout the summer and fall of 2025, Zhuo remained in jail, as trial dates were set and pushed back. Investigators had not been able to identify the man who had contacted Zhuo to arrange the pickup. Montour, after three months in rehab, pleaded guilty to possession on November 6th. He remained out of jail while awaiting his sentencing.<\/p>\n

On January 30, 2026, after Zhuo had been imprisoned for more than a year, the prosecutor sent an e-mail to Henry, suggesting a way to wrap up the case. \u201cHi Todd,\u201d Collyer wrote. \u201cI have an idea.\u201d He cited a portion of federal immigration law for drug offenses that states that \u201cany alien\u201d who enters the U.S. and violates a law is \u201cdeportable\u201d except for one group: those convicted of \u201ca single offense involving possession for one\u2019s own use of 30 grams or less of marijuana.\u201d The prosecutor proposed having Zhuo plead guilty to this crime, which would enable him to get out of jail and presumably avoid deportation. \u201cIs that acceptable if I can get it approved?\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the offer was astonishing\u2014a defendant caught with more than two hundred pounds of marijuana was being offered the chance to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Zhuo\u2019s attorney advised him to take the deal and avoid the risk of going to trial. Only about two per cent of federal criminal defendants take their cases to trial, and almost all of those who do are convicted. But Zhuo worried about the possible long-term consequences of a criminal conviction. \u201cI saw in the news that some people were arrested by ICE<\/em> because of a record they have from thirty years ago,\u201d he later explained. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be separated from my family because of that record.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minxing also thought that he should reject the plea deal. \u201cA U.S. Attorney tried to give a deal to a \u2018criminal\u2019\u2014a deal, in this kind of political environment, to try to help him stay in the U.S. If he really thinks he\u2019s a real criminal, why would he do that?\u201d she asked. \u201cHe already knows\u2014my husband is innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal judge overseeing Zhuo\u2019s case was Glenn T. Suddaby, a former prosecutor who had previously served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. On February 11th, Zhuo was brought to Suddaby\u2019s courtroom in Syracuse for a final pretrial conference. A week earlier, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office had, without explanation, dropped the conspiracy charge against Zhuo. Now the prosecutor told the judge, \u201cWe offered Mr. Zhuo a plea to an offense that would not result in his removal from the United States and is a misdemeanor that would result in time served, and it\u2019s my understanding he is rejecting that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Judge Suddaby said, \u201cCertainly it doesn\u2019t seem particularly rational to me, rejecting such an offer from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry told the judge, \u201cI understand how nice this offer is.\u201d He added, \u201cI have advised him to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge turned to Zhuo. \u201cSir,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s your position that you do not want to take advantage of that plea offer?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do anything, but I was put in jail for four hundred days,\u201d Zhuo said, speaking through a translator. \u201cWhat I want is justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge cut him off: \u201cI don\u2019t want to hear explanations or what your interpretation of your arrest is.\u201d If Zhuo had agreed to plead guilty, he could have been released from jail; instead, he remained there, with his trial set to start the following week.<\/p>\n

Minxing asked her uncle to drive her the two hundred and sixty miles to Syracuse to attend the trial. She brought a bag of clothes for Zhuo because she expected that he would be acquitted and released. \u201cI even was thinking where should I take him after this whole mess,\u201d she remembers. Her relatives had advised her that \u201cafter this bad luck, you\u2019re supposed to take a shower outside and clean off all this bad luck from you, and then you come back home with clean new luck,\u201d she said. She started thinking about taking Zhuo to a spa to shower before returning to Queens.<\/p>\n

His trial started on February 17th. Boxes of the marijuana that had been found in his minivan were displayed in the courtroom, in a cart parked across from the jurors. James Russell, the first Border Patrol agent to notice Zhuo\u2019s van, took the witness stand for the prosecution. The prosecutor had told the jurors that Russell was part of the Border Enforcement Security Task Force\u2014or BEST<\/em> team\u2014and that he and other team members were on the reservation that day \u201clooking to detect and disrupt international smuggling.\u201d As Russell, who was in an unmarked car, put it, \u201cWe simply observe, see suspicious things, relay it to the marked units.\u201d He spoke about smuggling strategies and the challenge of stopping it. Minxing, who sat alone in the spectator section of the courtroom, thought that the agent\u2019s testimony was beside the point. To her, it seemed, the prosecution was \u201ctrying to confuse the jurors\u201d about the nature of Zhuo\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor called two more agents to the stand\u2014Clinton Joseph, who had arrested Zhuo, and David Gottschall, who had interrogated Zhuo. At trial, Gottschall estimated the street value of the marijuana to be a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars\u2014down from the half-million figure the prosecutor had given earlier. Partway through Gottschall\u2019s testimony, there was a break in the proceeding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The lawyers approached the judge\u2019s bench to discuss how much longer the trial would go. Judge Suddaby had made it clear that he wanted the proceedings to be as efficient as possible. Henry had submitted the names of two potential witnesses\u2014a friend of Zhuo\u2019s and one of his relatives\u2014but he had since decided against calling them. \u201cThis is the last witness,\u201d Henry said to the judge. \u201cYou can tell them\u201d\u2014the jurors\u2014\u201cwe\u2019re ahead of schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sidebar ended, and Judge Suddaby addressed the jurors: \u201cGood news. There\u2019s not a lot left, O.K.? I told you it was going to be short and sweet. So we\u2019re going to break for the day. I\u2019m going to let you get out of here early. How about that? That never happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day, the jurors would confront the central matter of the case\u2014precisely what Zhuo understood about the boxes and luggage in the minivan during the half hour after he picked them up. In the courtroom, the prosecutor showed Zhuo\u2019s rearview-mirror camera footage in one-minute increments\u2014that was how it had been recorded. Instead of subtitles, jurors were provided with written summaries, such as, \u201cZhuo says that he (Zhuo) is driving back now. UM\u201d\u2014unidentified male, the customer on the phone\u2014\u201csays his (UM) stuff is in Zhuo\u2019s van.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crime Zhuo had been charged with\u2014possession with the intent to distribute\u2014requires a few elements, including that the accused actually know that he is in possession of a controlled substance. Henry insisted his client did not know: \u201cHe never says, \u2018This is marijuana.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Zhuo wonders if there \u201cmight be\u201d marijuana in the boxes behind him, he said during his closing argument, but \u201c\u00a0\u2018might be\u2019 doesn\u2019t rise to the standard.\u201d He added: \u201cIt can\u2019t be \u2018I\u2019m suspicious.\u2019 It can\u2019t be \u2018I assume.\u2019 It can\u2019t be \u2018It\u2019s probably this.\u2019\u00a0\u201d He reminded the jury that Zhuo had co\u00f6perated with law enforcement, turning over his phone and explaining how his video-recording system works: \u201cThose are not the actions of a guilty person. He doesn\u2019t know, and because he doesn\u2019t know, you all must find him not guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, in this trial, Zhuo and his attorney confronted an especially steep challenge in a legal doctrine known as willful blindness (or conscious avoidance), which broadens the range of scenarios in which a defendant can be found culpable. The principle expands the definition of knowledge to include not only instances in which one knows<\/em> he possesses a controlled substance but also those instances in which one strongly suspects<\/em> he may but does not take further steps to investigate.<\/p>\n

During his closing argument, Collyer, the prosecutor, said of Zhuo, \u201cHe repeatedly uses the word \u2018marijuana.\u2019 He talks about how the boxes smell. He doesn\u2019t check the boxes because that would mean confirming that it\u2019s marijuana. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is textbook conscious avoidance.\u201d He added, \u201cEven if you\u2019re not convinced that he knew what he was transporting and was going to distribute was marijuana\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. he\u2019s still guilty if he deliberately closed his eyes to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge\u2019s instructions to the jurors were more nuanced: he said they could find that Zhuo knew there was marijuana in his minivan if they determined that his \u201cignorance\u201d was \u201csolely and entirely the result of a conscious purpose to avoid learning the truth\u201d\u2014but not if they concluded that he was \u201cmerely negligent, foolish, or mistaken.\u201d The government also needed to prove an additional element of the crime, which received far less attention during the trial: intent to distribute. Were the jurors certain that Zhuo intended to hand off the boxes to someone at the Manhattan address he had been given? Or did they think that, in the next six hours, he might decide to do something else with them? \u201cThe government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt,\u201d the judge explained, that \u201cthe defendant intended to distribute the controlled substance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jurors deliberated for three and a half hours before the foreperson announced their verdict: \u201cGuilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, Minxing took a bus from Syracuse back to New York City, and the couple spoke on the phone. \u201cHe was crying, and then I was crying, and then he questioned how and why this happened, and we couldn\u2019t understand,\u201d she told me later. \u201cI told him that we will try to figure this out. And then I said, \u2018You know, you are innocent, and we will fight to the end no matter how long it takes.\u2019\u00a0\u201d It was their daughter Selene\u2019s first birthday, and he still had not met her in person, because he didn\u2019t want that moment to happen in a jail.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Zhuo\u2019s arrest, John A. Sarcone III, a Donald Trump loyalist, had taken over the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. After Zhuo\u2019s conviction, the Northern District issued a press release with a headline that misrepresented the facts of the case: \u201cChinese National Found Guilty of Smuggling 207 Pounds of Marijuana into the United States.\u201d Zhuo had not actually been found guilty of smuggling marijuana into the country; there were no allegations that he had crossed the border or knew the man who had loaded his car. The release included a quote from Sarcone: \u201cFor far too long, criminal networks have exploited the Akwesasne Mohawk Indian Reservation as a gateway for smuggling illegal drugs into our country. We will not tolerate anyone using this border region as a safe haven for trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Zhuo awaits his sentencing, he is being held at the Madison County jail in Wampsville, New York, not far from Syracuse. When I went to visit him there in May, he wore a uniform that was the same shade of orange as a traffic cone: matching shirt, pants, undershirt, socks. When I asked him about it and about the thick plastic I.D. bracelet he was forced to wear, he dropped his head. \u201cI feel ashamed. I want to reclaim my dignity,\u201d he said. \u201cI have never been in this situation before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We sat in a very small room with cinder-block walls, a locked door, and a square table in the corner with a telephone on it; there was a Mandarin translator on the line facilitating the interview. Zhuo had brought with him a black-and-white steno notebook with page after page of writing in Mandarin. \u201cThis is my story,\u201d he told me. He had written neatly, filling every line, and amid the Mandarin words, I saw a few familiar abbreviations: C.B.P., D.E.A., D.H.S., D.O.J., ICE<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Madison County\u2019s jail is the fourth location he has been held in since his arrest. \u201cThe first six months, I had nightmares every night,\u201d he told me. \u201cI can\u2019t understand why I\u2019m being locked up for so long, and I can\u2019t understand why this has anything to do with me.\u201d He had met another incarcerated man who spoke Mandarin at each of the first two jails, but he had not found anyone he could communicate with at Madison County. He spends his days in silence, passing the hours by jogging in the jail yard or writing in his steno notebook.<\/p>\n

In the days after he was convicted, he sent dozens of legal questions to Minxing from an electronic tablet that he could use in jail. He could not write on the tablet in Mandarin, so instead he wrote in Pinyin\u2014the transliteration of Mandarin using the Latin alphabet. She would feed his questions into ChatGPT, collect the answers, and send them back to him so that he could try to figure out what his legal options were.<\/p>\n

When I asked Zhuo about his mental health, he sighed. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to say. I feel especially lost because my life plan was to be with my daughter right now at my own home, but I spent all my life savings to fight a battle that wasn\u2019t mine to begin with,\u201d he said. The invoice for Henry\u2019s work had been sixty thousand dollars, the government had never returned his minivan, and Zhuo was still stuck in jail with no promise he would get out anytime soon. A month after the trial, Minxing hired a new lawyer to work on an appeal\u2014Patrick Brackley, a veteran defense attorney in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Assisting Brackley is an attorney named Thomas Eddy, who, in 1981, as a student at SUNY<\/em> Binghamton, was convicted of selling two ounces of cocaine to a classmate and his friend. Eddy served thirteen years in state prison before Governor Mario Cuomo commuted his sentence. Both he and Brackley have been emphatic about their client\u2019s innocence. Eddy says, \u201cHere is a guy who doesn\u2019t speak the language; he\u2019s in a part of the country he\u2019s never been before; he gets a bunch of boxes dumped on him and tries to figure out what\u2019s going on. The government is faulting him for not figuring out what to do fast enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

In arguing for Zhuo\u2019s imprisonment, the prosecutor wrote that Zhuo had \u201cevery opportunity to disavow the marijuana by turning it into the police or leaving it on the side of the road.\u201d Eddy finds that implausible. \u201cNobody can show up at a police station with two hundred pounds of weed and say, \u2018I don\u2019t know who gave it to me.\u2019 C\u2019mon! They\u2019re not letting you out,\u201d he told me. About the thirty or so minutes that elapsed while the boxes sat in his minivan, Eddy says of Zhuo, \u201cHe\u2019s driving. His wife is two weeks from delivering. It\u2019s all overwhelming. Who\u2019s thinking clearly?\u201d Eddy has been writing motions on Zhuo\u2019s behalf, trying to undo his conviction and prevent him from either being sent to federal prison or being deported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Today, Zhuo remains at the Madison County jail, awaiting the day when he will be taken to court to be sentenced. He turned thirty-two years old while incarcerated, and then thirty-three. By mid-July, he had been confined for nearly five hundred and fifty days. When I visited him, it was evident that he had been thinking quite a bit about his fate. He told me, \u201cI believe in the law in the U.S. That\u2019s why I came here. If there is not law, why did I come here? What would be the difference between here and China?\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more The New Yorker Festival Offers a First Look at Its 2026 Lineup<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Gonnerman reports on a driver from Queens who, in early 2025, arranged to pick up a passenger in New York\u2019s North County. and has been in jail upstate ever since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annals-of-justice"],"yoast_head":"\nHow a Chinese Immigrant Driver Got Entangled in a Drug Bust - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1037\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How a Chinese Immigrant Driver Got Entangled in a Drug Bust - 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