“Well it looks like the Government had this one right” – rueful judge after ‘flight risk’ Chinese illegal alien vanished on $0 bail

September 5, 2025

A Chinese illegal alien indicted for Bay Area retail theft, who was bailed by a trusting federal judge, absconded so quickly that he didn’t even turn up to have a GPS monitor fitted, a court heard today.

Weidong Liu is accused of importing counterfeit Apple products from China, returning them to Apple stores in the guise of purchased genuine products and exporting the stolen electronics back to China.

“Well it looks like the Government had this one right,” said a rueful U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex Tse this morning at San Francisco federal courthouse, referring to prosecutors’ warning that Liu was a flight risk and ought to be held in custody.

Two days earlier, in the same courtroom, the judge had ordered Liu released. The defendant was not required to put down any money as security, instead being allowed to promise that he would appear.

“There has already been an arrest warrant issued,” the judge noted today, “and this constitutes a failure to appear. He also didn’t show up to get his ankle monitor fitted.”

“If you find him,” Tse told prosecutors, “I wanna see him.”

Liu’s arrest alongside Chen Shen and Weiqin Xu was announced by federal prosecutors in San Francisco last week after an investigation that was part of Operation Take Back America – which officials describe as “a federal initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.”

With Liu’s release having secured its place among the pantheon of spectacularly unwise San Francisco bail decisions, federal law enforcement will presumably be reassessing the point of expending effort investigating these crimes in the Bay Area.