Carolina Forest homes seized, connected to Mexican drug cartel. Here’s details
Five Myrtle Beach-area properties were seized this week in relation to a wide-ranging federal investigation connected to a Chinese chemical company and Mexican drug cartel.
The Horry County Sheriff’s Office served the forfeiture notices in Carolina Forest on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigations as part of a multi-million dollar seizure related to money laundering by a foreign terrorist organization, the agency posted on its Facebook page.
The federal complaint seeking these forfeitures shows the properties — 9039 Fort Hill Way, 9043 Fort Hill Way, 115 Calhoun Falls Drive, 490 Calhoun Falls Drive, 534 Calhoun Falls Drive — are all within The Parks at Carolina Forest. Their total value adds up to nearly $2.2 million, the complaint states.
Four of the properties are owned by Ruiqi Zeng and one by Liu Chuan, Horry County property records show. Zeng is the daughter and Chuan the son of Xiaoli Liu, the general manager of China-based Sichuan Sundia Chemical Co., according to the complaint.
The U.S. government is accusing Sundia Chemical of supplying chemicals needed to manufacture methamphetamine to the Sinaloa Cartel, a notorious Mexican drug trafficker designated earlier this year as a foreign terrorist organization.
Liu and her children laundered proceeds from these illicit transactions back into the United States and attempted to conceal those proceeds by purchasing assets, including these Carolina Forest properties, according to the complaint.
Efforts to obscure these illegal proceeds included the creation of Myrtle Beach-based New Star Holding LLC, which the government alleges was a shell company for Sundia Chemical. Zeng, who entered the U.S. in 2023 to study at Johns Hopkins University, is the listed agent for New Star, which operated out of an office at 2411 N. Oak St. before closing toward the end of 2024, the complaint states.
New Star Holding’s website remains active as of publication, and the company describes itself as a supplier of chemical raw materials and is a “window company” of Sundia Hong Kong Chemical Co. The government alleges the company hired fraudulent employees and even decorated its office to appear legitimate, but it had no known customers, inventory or vendors.
Messages left by The Sun News at the phone number and email listed on the company’s website were not returned. Attempts to reach Zeng, who the government alleges returned to China in November 2024, were unsuccessful.
Zeng and Chuan purchased the Myrtle Beach-area properties in 2023 and 2024 from D.R. Horton via funds deposited into their accounts from proceeds of Sundia Chemical’s sales to Nortpacif, a Mexican company that imports chemicals on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel, the complaint alleges.
Sundia Chemical, via New Star Holding, sent at least 116 shipments of chemicals to Nortpacif between November 2023 and May 2025, according to the government.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration intercepted a shipment in May 2025 from New Star Holding headed to Nortpacif in Mexico that contained about 50,400 kilograms of a chemical used to manufacture meth, the complaint states. These chemicals are not controlled, meaning they’re legal to ship and purchase if not for the known intent of manufacturing illicit drugs, the government noted.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection alerted Sundia Chemical of this seizure, and the Chinese government advised Liu to avoid continuing these shipments, according to the complaint.
Shortly after that alert, three of the Carolina Forest properties owned by Zeng were listed for sale, an act the government alleges is an indication Liu knew they were purchased with illegal proceeds and was her attempt to recover those laundered funds.
