$70K And Child Pornography Found During Amtrak Station Arrest

PORTLAND, OR — A Minnesota man and his cousin were arrested at Portland's Union Station last week after federal agents discovered the men were carrying roughly $70,000 in cash and thousands of pictures and videos of child pornography in their luggage, according to court documents.

Fong Lee, 31, and Ying Moua, 26, were taken to the Multnomah County Jail Dec. 5. Lee was charged with laundering and encouraging child sex abuse, while Moua was charged only with laundering.

Court documents obtained by Patch show both men were traveling to Fresno, California, when they encountered federal agents from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — better known as ICE.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed by Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Bumjoon Park, the agents were already performing random, consensual searches with a K9 when they came upon Moua and Lee at Union Station, 800 N.W. Sixth Ave.

Moua reportedly consented to opening his luggage for the agents first.

In Moua's bag, agents reportedly found $35,000 cash in a vacuum-sealed package. The K9, Park wrote, also reacted to the presence of narcotics on the package.

Moua reportedly told the agents he got the money from selling cannabis and that he was traveling to California to buy more, which he intended to take back to Minnesota. Moua reportedly told the agents he's made this trip a couple of times before also letting them know Lee had another $35,000 in his bag.

Both Moua and Lee told the agents they were cousins, Park wrote.

After revealing the second vacuum-sealed package of cash, Lee reportedly told agents Moua asked him to help transport the money, that he was being paid to do it, and that he believed it was going to be used to buy drugs.

However, during their search, agents also found several hard drives, micro SD cards, and USB thumb drives in Lee's bag, Park wrote.

Lee reportedly admitted he kept child pornography on the storage devices, telling agents he had thousands of images of kids — some as young as 5 years old. Lee reportedly also told agents he'd been a purveyor of child pornography for the past 10 years, that he knows it's illegal, but that his culture does not condemn an adult having sex with a minor — though a child between 5 and 10 years old is "too young," Park wrote.

Additionally, Lee reportedly volunteered to tell agents he had sex with his 12-year-old sibling when he was 21 and living in California, Park wrote.

During his interview with officers after his arrest, Moua reportedly said he was going to stay in California with his sick father until Dec. 11, then fly back to his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dec. 17 — though he hadn't yet bought his plane ticket.

Lee declined to be interviewed after he was taken into custody, documents show.

Booking photos via Multnomah County Sheriff's Office