China-born conman Cary Yan was prosecuted in the U.S. under the name of his twin brother — marking the latest twist in a saga that saw him convicted for bribing politicians to build a futuristic city-state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Cary Yan and his girlfriend, Gina Zhou, pleaded guilty in federal court in New York in late 2022 over a scheme to bribe Marshall Islands politicians to win their support to create an autonomous special economic zone in the country.
The couple’s conviction ended a grifting journey that saw them go from running a spa in a California strip mall, and hawking a fake miracle water cure, to rubbing shoulders with diplomats and world leaders. The odyssey was recounted in an OCCRP investigation in 2023. 
Now, Cary Yan has told OCCRP that the FBI and U.S. federal prosecutors erroneously charged him under the name of his twin brother.
Cary Yan began an interview in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur by saying a Christian prayer, and implored God to “punish me severely” if he lied.
“We’re twins,” he said, explaining why U.S. authorities indicted him under his brother’s name. “That’s why the FBI got everything mixed up in their report.”
Reporters confirmed Cary Yan’s claim by cross-checking files from his U.S. federal court case with law enforcement and court records from China’s Anhui province, as well as Chinese state media reports.
American court files show he was charged under his English-language name, “Cary.” However, he was also listed in the indictment as using the name Yan Hong Hui.
But Hong Hui Yan is actually the name of Cary Yan’s brother, who also goes by Adam Yan. Cary Yan’s real name is Yan Hong Yue. The brothers look similar to each other, but are easily distinguishable.
Chinese court records show that Adam Yan was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a pyramid scheme that netted nearly $18 million by selling mine waste as a miracle water that could cure a wide range of ailments. Chinese authorities are also seeking Cary Yan’s arrest over the miracle water scheme.
The confusion over Cary Yan’s name does not mean that U.S. authorities imprisoned him for crimes committed by someone else. He was convicted for acts carried out as he traveled the world on a Marshall Islands passport bearing his English-language name.
But the mistaken name listed in the indictment does show that U.S. law enforcement does not always have the tools necessary to grapple with Chinese organized crime, said Dennis Lormel, a former FBI special agent.
“There’s certainly a language understanding problem,” he said. “And then when you translate that in terms of trying to get the proper identifications, we don’t have the cultural understanding we need to have.”
The FBI did not respond to requests for comment. The Department of Justice’s Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
The scheme Cary Yan and Gina Zhou were jailed for would have transformed an uninhabited Marshall Islands region made radioactive by U.S. nuclear testing into a high-tech business hub. The plan raised fears of Chinese influence due to its location near Kwajalein Atoll, home of a sensitive U.S. military facility that is used for monitoring space and testing missiles.
But the project fell apart after the pair were arrested in Thailand in 2020 and extradited to the U.S. Both were deported to the Marshall Islands, where they held passports, in 2023 and 2024 after short stints in U.S. custody. They ended up stranded in Malaysia earlier this year and have had their Marshall Islands passports revoked.
