Malia Howland, who lives across the street from a raided Miami Twp. home, said when the workers first arrived across from her home, she became aware of their living arrangements because of the lack of curtains or blinds in the house’s front-facing windows.
“The whole downstairs you could see and (it) was nothing but bunk beds,” she said. “It was so disgusting. The trash would just be everywhere.”
Dayton Daily News reporters visited many of the raided homes in the Dayton area, as well as numerous other properties owned by the same companies and individuals that own the raided properties. Federal agents reportedly carted away bags of evidence from four homes on one street in Liberty Twp. in Butler County.
Homeland Security Investigations Detroit Special Agent in Charge Jared Murphey said the investigation is focused on money laundering, potential human smuggling, labor exploitation and financial crimes.
“As we speak, law enforcement is working diligently to identify victims to provide them with services and to gather evidence relevant to the investigation,” Murphey said July 26, the day of the raid.
At this point, no charges have been announced.
Fuyao Glass America said it was told by authorities that a third-party employment company was at the center of the criminal investigation. Company officials say they are complying with the investigation. The name of the staffing company has not been publicly disclosed.
When reporters visited the raided homes in the Dayton area, no one answered the door, the residents said they spoke only Chinese or said they couldn’t answer questions. One house in Dayton had the door open on a sweltering afternoon, through which dishes could be seen piled in the kitchen and, hanging from the ceiling, fly strips were filled with bugs.
Several of the raided properties are owned by a company called HELI Real Estate Trading Company with a mailing address on Watoga Drive in Liberty Twp., according to county property records. Ohio business records say the company was incorporated in 2021 by Guo Qiang Lin, who lives at another home on the same street, according to Butler County property records.
Both homes were visited by federal authorities, as well as two others on the same street, according to neighbors. A reporter visited all four homes and either no one answered the door or the person who answered said they had no knowledge of the investigation.
HELI Real Estate owns 10 properties in Montgomery County, all purchased in the past two years.
Guo Qiang Lin also owns a home on Loris Drive in Miami Twp. that was raided. Neighbor Dan Mays said the first workers who moved in next door showed up in flip flops, T-shirts and shorts and carried their belongings in a plastic grocery store bag.
“The vans had to pick them up, take them shopping,” Mays said. “When they came back from shopping, they had running suits on and that’s what they went to work in for about a week and a half, two weeks until they got their Fuyao shirts and pants.”
He said about 24 workers lived in that roughly 1,600-square-foot home when they first showed up more than two years ago. This year, about 10 workers are living there, Mays said.
Last summer, the workers had to move out when a lower level flooded, he said. Three men came and tore out everything, including eight-foot sections of wall, and constructed double bunk beds for the workers, Mays said.
The neighbor of another home nearby that was raided on Cantata Court is Michael Mays — Dan Mays’ nephew — who confirmed that the workers’ stay is typically a transient one.
“Every couple of months they’ll drop four or five new people off with luggage,” said Michael Mays. “Then four or five people with luggage will exit, get in the van and take off, and then new folks come in with luggage and then they stay a little bit.”
The raid
Andrew Porterfield said he was cooking when he looked out his kitchen window and saw an unmarked vehicle pull onto the yard of the house across the street on Irving Avenue, followed by four others and then a sheriff’s office vehicle. He said a man got out of one of the vehicles and addressed the people in the house in Chinese using a bullhorn.
He watched as 10 people were brought out of the house and questioned.
Porterfield and other neighbors said prior to the raid they constantly saw white vans picking up and dropping off people throughout the day from that house as well as about a dozen people from a house nearby on Kling Drive and a few others from another nearby on Constantia Avenue.
“I just noticed the behavior of a bunch of people getting picked up in a van and going in and out of houses,” Porterfield said.
White vans were observed being towed from Fuyao the day of the raid. Since then, neighbors say a new van started showing up. The van with Hamilton County plates was parked on Constantia when the reporter visited.
Stephanie Fillback said when she moved into her Kling Drive home about three years ago she noticed the odd behavior at her neighbor’s house.
“There’s a white van that always picks them up really early and drops them off really late at night,” Fillback said.
She had no idea how many people live there.
“It’s a lot,” Fillback said.
Another neighbor estimated at least a dozen people live in the single-story, two-bedroom home that’s less tan 1,200 square feet.
Property owners
The three homes in Dayton near the University of Dayton are owned either in part or entirely by a person named Hanbing Yu. Reached for comment, she said: “I know nothing about it.”
Yu is either the full or partial owner of five properties in Montgomery County, including four purchased in 2022, according to county records.
Other properties that were raided by federal authorities are owned by companies traced back to owners on Watoga Drive in Liberty Twp.
None of the companies connected to the properties advertise as staffing agencies. One of the properties that was raided is a commercial building on East Central Avenue Miamisburg owned by Lienchiang Real Estate, which was incorporated by someone at one of the Watoga Drive addresses.
Miamisburg officials said the East Central building doesn’t have a business right now but is being renovated for an office user named Easy Iron Group, LLC. Building inspection officials have been making regular inspections there and they are close to getting a final inspection, officials said. They said they do not know what the business does.
The Dayton Daily News left a voicemail and sent an email with the company contact information listed on a city building permit application.
There is no company registered as Easy Iron Group in Ohio. But there are two companies registered as E-Z Iron. Both are connected to the homes on Watoga Drive.
The four homes raided on Watoga Drive in Liberty Twp. were purchased in 2021 for between $490,000 and $582,000, according to Butler County Auditor’s Office records.
Located inside Turnbridge, a newer upscale residential community, the Butler County properties are a stark contrast to those raided in Montgomery County. Each of the Liberty Twp. homes has a family name emblazoned in English and Chinese characters on a plaque at the front of the home right next to the garage.
What neighbors see
Residents said without transportation of their own, the workers must rely on someone who comes by every day to bring them to work.
“Several times a day the white (cargo) van comes around and picks up maybe seven to 10 of them, and maybe 30 minutes later comes back and drops off seven to 10 of them,” said Gayle Helton, who lives near a home raided on Cantata Court. “Like in shifts. Shift workers.”
Having no transportation of their own, the workers trek to and from the supermarket by foot.
“It’ll be pouring rain (and) they’ll just be carrying their groceries,” Helton said.
Howland said the white vans that pick up the workers consistently run stop signs.
“They almost hit my kids I don’t know how many times getting in and off the school bus,” she said. “The people that drive these vans live in their own world. They will back out their driveway whether there was a car coming (or not).”
Howland noticed other vehicles with license plates from different states coming and going from the property.
“A Mercedes van would come randomly and they had New York plates,” she said. “All of that just seemed very concerning to me.”
Henry “Butch” Milton said having the workers next door on Cantata Court means having to contend with unwanted sights, such as long grass, cigarette butts strewn across the yard, a fence in disrepair and more.
“They’re bathing themselves outside with a wash rag and a dish towel and they’re dashing the water into the yard,” Milton said, adding that he acknowledges the workers are possibly victims and feels bad for them.
Neighbors at the majority of the homes expressed displeasure with a lack of property maintenance at the homes. They spoke of lawns rarely mowed, broken fences, excessive trash brought to the curb and trash cans left at the end of a driveway and never removed. Other visible evidence included a bathtub in front of the Cantata Court home and a refrigerator and shopping cart to the left of a home on Mattis Drive in Miami Twp.
Miami Twp. records show there has been one housing code violation complaint at the property since 2021. It was for the condition of the privacy fence and trash cans being left out. It was opened in August 2023 and closed in October. Two other properties in the township had code violation complaints as well for the condition of the property and “concern for occupancy limits.”
Milton said the house next door on Cantata has been renovated to accommodate the workers at least once since it was purchased in September 2021.
“They actually closed the house down for a couple of weeks and they went in to remodel it,” he said. “They were making rooms inside of rooms for people to sleep.”
Cody Horton said a lot of people walk the short distance to and from Fuyao from a ranch home on Hoyle Place in Kettering, which sits behind his home on Waterbury Drive. He said he’s also noticed the comings and goings of large Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, one of which was parked in the driveway when this news outlet stopped by last week.
Horton said he was out of town and found out from neighbors that the home was raided.
“It’s pretty crazy (for this to happen) in a quiet neighborhood like this,” Horton said.
