Chinese illegal immigrants are obtaining commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) and landing jobs in the U.S. trucking industry with support from a Chinese government-linked network, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
The Chinese American Trucker Organization USA Inc. (CATOU) is a New York-based nonprofit trade organization registered as a 501(c)6 that has allegedly helped over 1,000 Chinese students obtain CDLs and has a 100% pass rate, according to its business filings, social media posts and website. Videos posted on social media by an individual who crossed the U.S. southern border illegally shows they were able to rapidly obtain California CDLs after taking courses taught by CATOU instructors.
The public safety concern presented by truckers with unknown criminal backgrounds and driving records is compounded by CATOU’s board chairwoman, Geng Hang, who has held leadership roles within organizations operating as arms of the Chinese government and a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence and intelligence agency called the United Front Work Department (UFWD), according to DCNF translations of announcements from those entities.
“No way American citizens voted for the California gateway for illegal migrants to operate heavy vehicles throughout America. That of itself is a public safety and homeland security concern,” Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and national security policy at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
“Having a large CCP-tied network further train, certify, and place ‘their’ illegal migrants throughout vital surface shipping routes — urban, rural, and interstate — elevates national security risks,” Yates said. “At a time of high tension, crisis, or conflict with the CCP, what confidence could we have this network could not and would not be used against us?”
CATOU and Geng did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
[Image created by DCNF with pictures from ASGCC and Qiaobao]
‘Not One Has Failed So Far’
Chinese social media posts show CATOU instructors teaching students about the trucking industry inside the New York office of Red Apple Employment Agency, which is also led by Geng, and helps Chinese nationals both with and “without proper status” find work for “$80 to $100 per job placement,” The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2024.
While the DCNF found no New York business filing for Red Apple Employment Agency, the agency’s office displays signs featuring both CATOU and its name, videos posted by CATOU on Chinese social media reveal.
CATOU members have also taught truck driving courses at 7 CDL Driving School in Manassas, Virginia, videos within posts from the X account @tiange999 show. The driving school shares its address with a trucking company that Geng owns called Red Apple Enterprises Inc., according to business filings and 7 CDL’s website.
“The driving school where I’m studying has trained over 1,000 Chinese students and not one has failed so far,” @tiange999 wrote in a September 2024 X post featuring videos filmed with a CATOU instructor at 7 CDL Driving School, according to a DCNF translation. “Experienced students can pass in just one week, while those with no driving experience pass in about a month.”
The @tiange999 account is operated by a Chinese national who traveled up from South America and Central America into North America before crossing the U.S. southern border in June 2023. The owner of the account has since referred to himself as someone who “walked the line,” which is a “euphemism for illegal migration out of China,” Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center For Border Security and Immigration, testified during a May 2024 hearing held by the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.
Roughly 8.5 million illegal aliens were encountered at the U.S. southern border during the Biden administration, including over 182,000 Chinese nationals from fiscal years 2021-2024, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection told the DCNF.
The @tiange999 account also features videos detailing how he passed the CDL test at 7 CDL Driving School and ultimately obtained CDL qualification in less than two months after first announcing he’d received a California driver’s license in August 2024.
More recent posts show @tiange999 driving a coach bus with identification numbers revealing his employer to be NC Transfer Inc., which has branches in North Carolina and New York, according to business filings.
The Trump administration is ramping up scrutiny of the trucking industry following a deadly August 2025 crash in Florida involving an illegal immigrant truck driver with a California CDL, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The truck driver has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and a preliminary Department of Transportation (DOT) investigation allegedly discovered he “did not speak English.”
“I would say just the drivers alone is not scary enough on the national security front,” Justin Martin, a 15-year trucking industry veteran, told the DCNF.
“These guys are already here, and they’re already operating, and it doesn’t matter how many of these trucks you catch or how many of these drivers you shut down, they’re just going to get hired somewhere else until they start going after the companies and the owners of these companies and shutting them down and preventing them from coming back,” Martin said.
[Image created by the DCNF with screenshots of @tiange999’s X account]
‘Foreign Actors’
CATOU’s chairwoman, Geng, has served as an official in multiple organizations advancing Chinese influence and intelligence efforts in the U.S., including one entity that has held meetings in the New York office shared by CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency, according to DCNF translations of Chinese media reports, social media posts, and the organizations’ announcements.
Among other Chinese government-tied leadership positions, the website of a New York nonprofit called the American Shaanxi General Chamber of Commerce (ASGCC) identifies Geng as its deputy chairwoman, according to a DCNF translation. ASGCC operates as a branch of the Shaanxi provincial Department of Commerce as well as a “sister association” of a UFWD arm called the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), according to DCNF translations of ASGCC and COFA announcements.
ASGCC has repeatedly met with Chinese government officials, including in June 2009, when the nonprofit welcomed a delegation from the Shaanxi government and the UFWD‘s Chinese People’s Association For Friendship With Foreign Countries to discuss U.S. investment in China, according to DCNF translations of ASGCC announcements. Geng presented the delegation’s head with flowers at the airport, and she and other ASGCC members later serenaded the officials with songs like “Nanniwan,” which commemorates the CCP and Chinese military, according to Chinese state media.
Photos accompanying a January 2015 social media post made by ASGCC’s chairman also show ASGCC has held meetings within the shared New York office of CATOU and Red Apple Employment Agency.
“We are slowly giving over our entire truck industry to foreign actors,” Gord Magill, a truck industry writer, told the DCNF.
“I think foreign actors are fully aware that America’s corporations engaging in wage arbitrage and wage suppression against their own people are presenting opportunities for them to extract and scrape value out of the U.S. and give them some kind of strategic advantage in knowing exactly how our transportation systems work, and they’re just leveraging it for their own ends at the cost of American jobs and American motorists’ safety,” Magill said.
ASGCC, Red Apple Employment Agency, 7 CDL Driving School, Red Apple Enterprises, @tiange999, NC Transfer Inc. and DOT did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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