Feds arrest 36 Chinese, Taiwanese citizens in SoCal underground nightclub raid

Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times on May 31, 2025

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LOS ANGELES — Federal agents raided a nightclub early Friday and arrested 36 Chinese and Taiwanese citizens suspected of being in the country illegally, authorities said.

Los Angeles Homeland Security officers, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and members of the El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force made the arrests during “an enforcement operation in an underground nightclub” according to a statement shared on X.

A video shared by HSI Los Angeles shows an officer donning a vest in a parking lot before sunrise, before cutting to a daylight scene of a group of people huddled on the sidewalk outside a building, some with their heads bowed. Officers are shown handcuffing the individuals and loading them into white vans.

It is not clear where the underground nightclub is located.

Further details on the investigation were not immediately available. The role of the El Camino Real Financial Crimes Task Force in the raid was also unclear.

The group is a multi-agency initiative of federal and state investigators focused on financial crimes in Southern California. Members include HSI Los Angeles, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the California Department of Justice.

On Wednesday, an investigation involving the task force led to the arrest of 14 individuals — including San Fernando Valley and Glendale residents — who were accused of being part of a transnational criminal network that fraudulently obtained more than $25 million in COVID-19 relief funds.

Friday’s immigration enforcement action comes as ICE works to comply with President Donald Trump’s orders to ramp up the pace of arrests and deportations across the nation. On Thursday, the agency announced that it achieved its highest number of arrests in history this week.

On Monday, HSI Los Angeles arrested 12 Mexican citizens on suspicion of being unlawfully present in the U.S. after they traveled in a small boat from Mexico to Long Beach.

In April, an estimated two dozen day laborers were detained in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection action outside of a Home Depot in Pomona. Earlier in the year, CBP agents conducted a three-day raid in rural parts of Kern County targeting day laborers and Latino farmworkers.