Couple Plead Guilty to Smuggling, Tax Evasion

GLENDALE — A couple has pleaded guilty to smuggling illegal Chinese medicine into the country and evading at least $1.3 million in taxes.

Hoa Thich Minh, 43, and his wife, Tran Ngoc Tran, 38, agreed to forfeit roughly $6.5 million worth of property and cash as part of their guilty plea in federal court, Assistant U.S. Atty. Marc Harris said Monday. Sentencing is set for May 18, with Minh facing up to two years while Tran will probably avoid a prison sentence, Harris said.

The Glendale couple failed to report roughly $4.8 million in taxable income between 1990 and 1993, Harris said, adding that the Internal Revenue Service will seek at least $1.3 million in unpaid taxes, not including fines and penalties.

“There may have been others involved in this operation,” he said of the family business that operated out of a Glendale warehouse between 1990 and 1995.

The operation, which apparently smuggled 140 shipments of prohibited medicines into the United States between 1990 and 1995, relied on misleading filings with the U.S. Customs Service, Harris said, adding that those filings “falsely described and undervalued” the medicines being imported.

Minh and Tran admitted to illegally importing and distributing medicines, including Tung Shueh pills, which contain the same active ingredient found in the prescription drug Valium.

The couple apparently filled orders from as far away as Chicago and Houston, Harris said. “They sold the medicine to small, Chinatown-type mom-and-pop shops, not your big supermarkets like Vons or Thrifty.”