CHICAGO — The sheriff’s office says a man placed on electronic monitoring while awaiting trial for armed robbery and kidnapping charges has cut off his ankle bracelet and disappeared. Dongliang Wang, 31, failed to appear for court on June 13, 2022, and hasn’t been seen since. Officials said he simply walked out of his house and slipped into the wind.
A Chicago Police Department SWAT team rescued the 49-year-old kidnapping victim from Wang’s bedroom in the 2000 block of West 35th Street on October 12, 2020, according to CPD records.
During Wang’s bail hearing two days later, prosecutors detailed a series of events leading up to the kidnapping that caused Judge Susana Ortiz to speculate that there was “possibly some laundering going on here.”
According to prosecutors, Wang gave a Las Vegas woman $7,000 to transfer into Chinese currency, but the woman kept the cash and failed to follow through on the transfer.
In the weeks before the kidnapping, she offered the soon-to-be victim $2,000 to drive her from Vegas to Chicago so she could pick up more cash, prosecutors said. The victim and his girlfriend made the trip and brought the woman here.
When they arrived, the woman sent the victim to pick up the cash she was expecting to receive from a man in the Jewel-Osco parking lot at 3644 South Archer.
That’s where Wang allegedly forced the victim into a car at gunpoint. The victim said two Hispanic men were in the car’s back seat and another Chinese man drove them all to Wang’s house.
For hours, the men yelled at the victim and threatened him with a gun and Taser. They forced him to call the Las Vegas woman to demand repayment of the $7,000 she stole plus “extra” money, prosecutors said.
At one point, Wang allegedly transferred $2,500 from the victim’s bank to his own account via Zelle.
The woman from Las Vegas called 911 to report the kidnapping. Cops tracked the victim’s iPhone and sent a SWAT team to its location. Wang surrendered to the police and the SWAT team allegedly found the victim in a third-floor bedroom and a loaded handgun in a nearby closet.
Prosecutors said video from the Jewel-Osco as well as surveillance video from Wang’s own security system corroborated the allegations.
Wang’s defense attorney during his initial court appearance said he was born in China and had worked as an Uber driver for about two years.
In a court document secured by CWBChicago, the lawyer wrote that the $200,000 bail amount set by Judge Ortiz was “more than [he] can afford.” Yet, court records show Wang posted bail and went onto electronic monitoring the very same day.
He is charged with six counts of kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping while armed with a firearm, two counts of armed robbery, and three gun possession felonies.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Police are in charge of locating Wang. They can be contacted at 708-865-4700.
