OT: Create Your Own Military Unit!!!

[dragoon500ly]

Well, even I had to set back in awe at the sheer chutzpah of Yupeng Deng who was arraigned in court on charges that he pretended to be a US Army recruiter and bilked fellow immigrants out of thousands of dollars in fees.

You see, Mr. Deng created his own unit, the "U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve Unit" based in Temple City, a Los Angeles suburb with a large Asian immigrant population.

As many as 100 immigrants wore ACUs and Class A uniforms, berets, decorations, ranks and their own unit patch and were even issued fake military ID cards. The recruits were charged "fees" ranging from $300 to $450 to join Deng's reserve unit and had to pay as much as $120 a year to renew their membership.

Deng trained his recruits with mock weapons and even marched his unit at public events including a parade in Monterey Park and even toured the US Midway Museum in San Diego in full uniform.

What finally broke this unit was Deng's claim that by showing their "military ID cards", local police would help the recruits with traffic tickets.

Deng was able to take advantage of the desperation of many immigrants desire to secure citizenship. His act of fraud also took advantage of the DREAM Act, a immigration legislation which would have offered citizenship in exchange for military service, under certain conditions. The DREAM Act died on the floor of the Senate last year, but there is still enough (mis)information about the DREAM Act to allow people such as Deng to take advantage.

Deng faces 13 counts of obtaining money, labor or property under false pretenses and of manufacturing and selling phony identification documents, if convicted, he faces up to eight years in prison. He was also charged with one count of possession of child pornography and he can face an additional three years in state prison for that charge, if convicted.

Just when you think that you have heard everything.....

[Abbott Shaull]

Yeah read about this scum bag about couple months ago when the story first broke. My thought was wow in the shadows of a fairly large City. Makes you wonder what people could do in places like New York or Chicago. Worse yet take Dearborn, MI one of the largest concentration of Arab in the US. *Shudders*

[dragoon500ly]

Yup, one does have to sit back and wonder just what is growing in our cities.

[Abbott Shaull]

No it wouldn't surprise me. Much like I wouldn't be surprise what one could find in almost any Military Arms Room. Many of the Gangs that breed in these Inner-Cities are relatively heavily armed via the black market.

The only reason they don't use their heavy weapons is they don't want to alienate the people who willingly support them by not turning these gangs in.

[HorseSoldier]

Distressing but not too surprising. Up here we have a large Hmong population and assorted other immigrants from places where laws and government work a whole lot differently than they work in a developed nation (when they work at all -- we've got a lot of Dinka refugees from south Sudan, as well). There's a lot of cons and frauds targeting those people because they don't have the same spider sense to pick up on scams the way people who grew up in the US cultural framework do -- and an unfortunate portion of those crimes are backed up with threats of legal action against the victims, having them arrested, whatever, for not participating in the scam.

And they fall for it a lot -- if you grow up somewhere where a rich guy can have a poor guy arrested by slipping the police some cash or calling in a favor from his cousin the chief of police, you carry that framework somewhere in your head even if that's not local rules. So I can easily see this guy claiming that for a modest kick back he can hook up immigrants with membership in a non-deployable reserve military unit that will help get them citizenship. Most of his members are probably from nations where similar kick backs would get you out of conscription or get you promoted if conscripted, so in the victims' heads the script works.

[dragoon500ly]

I understand about how different cultures approach things, what got me is that this guy was able to march in a parade, troop his unit from LA down to San Diego...and nobody so much as blinked.

Ah well, it happened in California...why does anything that happens in Cali should ever surprise me?

"And next on Channel 12 Action Live News! The US Navy's Task Force 273, made up of Berber tribesmen will be launching their latest vessel. The 24-foot Boston Whaler will be christened the USS Fudgepucker, BBGSK-345."