Chinese transplant surgeon gets 20 months for role in steroid money-laundering scheme

A federal judge today sentenced a surgeon who specializes in kidney transplants at Wuhan General Hospital in China to 20 months - and ordered him to give up some $1.6 million in seized funds from American banks - for his role in funneling money from illegal steroid sales in Massachusetts and elsewhere back to China.

Dr. Zhendi Wang has spent roughly 17 months locked up pending the disposition of his case in US District Court in Boston, which means he could be free in another three months, with the condition he return to China.

Wang was arrested at the San Francisco airport in July, 2023, before he could board a plane back to China after a vacation with his wife - also a doctor - and son that included trips to Yosemite National Park and Disneyland, according to his attorneys, who added in a sentencing memorandum:

Suffice it to say that Dr. Wang made a series of decision that, in retrospect, he deeply regrets. They have caused immeasurable and perhaps permanent damage to him, his family, and his career – and they inadvertently helped further an unlawful enterprise that caused harm to American communities.

According to court records, Wang had set up an account at a bank in Boston on a trip here in 2019 to receive and ship out payments from conspirators who were importing the drugs into the US in general and Massachusetts in particular, according to an affidavit by a deputy Suffolk County sheriff who worked with the DEA on its investigation.

Prosecutors had agreed to a 20-month sentence in a plea deal reached in October.