A year ago, a wealthy Chinese immigrant couple vanished from their mansion on Long Island, New York, without a trace. They still have not been found.
In March 2025, 48-year-old Peishun Fan and 44-year-old Juanjuan Zhang were having dinner with their sons, who were 20 and 12 at the time.
The next day, their children returned from the Catskills only to discover that their parents were missing. They haven’t seen or heard from their parents ever since.
The family had immigrated to the United States in 2022. They purchased their mansion in Old Brookville, an affluent neighborhood on Long Island, for about $3.9 million.
They didn’t speak much English and mainly socialized with the local Chinese community. Neighbors described them as quiet and friendly.
On March 29, 2025, the family hosted a small dinner at home with their younger son’s friends. The guests left at around 10:30 p.m., which was also the last confirmed sighting of the missing couple.
Early next morning, their 20-year-old son, Yiwei, known as Gary, his girlfriend, and his 12-year-old brother, Yinning, known as Eli, left for a planned trip to the Catskill Mountains.
While he was driving, Gary received multiple strange text messages from his parents. He tried calling his parents, but both of their phones were off.
Later that day, neighborhood security contacted him and reported suspicious people hanging around the property. A black SUV was reportedly spotted outside the house around the time of the disappearance. The vehicle’s license plate was intentionally covered in mud to avoid identification.
Gary asked friends who lived nearby to check on the house. They found the front door wide open. The lights were all turned on, and half-eaten food was still sitting on the table.
The couple was nowhere to be found. Their keys, wallets, passports, jewelry, and both luxury vehicles were still there. The police and the FBI searched the house but did not uncover any clues pointing to where the couple might have gone.
Apparently, the home’s security systems had either failed or weren’t working properly. There were also no signs of forced entry, struggle, or blood.
About three months later, Gary received bank alerts stating that almost $2.9 million had been transferred out of his parents’ accounts. Investigators discovered that someone had fraudulently changed the accounts to joint survivorship accounts.
A 56-year-old woman named Qiujiu Wu was identified as the beneficiary. She had been withdrawing money and funneling it through a shell company.
Her accomplice was a younger man named Yinye Wang, who had a history of stealing identities, possessing fake driver’s licenses, and committing financial fraud.
They were arrested, and the woman later pleaded guilty to bank fraud. The younger man posted bail and disappeared. Investigators don’t think that the two scammers kidnapped or murdered the couple.
They believe that the scammers just tried to take advantage of the couple’s disappearance by stealing their money while no one was actively monitoring the accounts.
According to Chinese reports, the husband was a successful businessman involved in major construction and civil engineering projects before immigrating to the U.S. He was allegedly detained by Chinese authorities before leaving the country. U.S. officials have not yet confirmed this information.
In the meantime, the couple’s two sons flew to China to be with their relatives. Eli wants to go back to his school, but according to investigators, the brothers have been unable to get visas to return to New York.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
