Albuquerque couple accused of renting ‘stash houses’ for smugglers

A 44-year-old woman who once hoped to become the Albuquerque Police Department’s first female Asian officer is behind bars, accused of renting properties in the city for use as “stash houses” by human smugglers and laundering their illegal profits.

A federal grand jury indictment made public Wednesday alleges Nan Zhang and her husband, Sanjay Khurana, 62, arranged rental agreements with human smugglers who transported and harbored undocumented immigrants into Albuquerque for a fee. The couple is also accused of offering to “clean” illegal smuggling profits through real estate deals to avoid detection by law enforcement.

“This case exposes the dangerous lengths to which some will go to profit from human suffering,” said Ryan Ellison, U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico. “Turning homes into hideouts for smuggling operations and disguising illicit profits through real estate transactions not only fuels crime but endangers our communities. By targeting criminal enterprises that exploit our city’s neighborhoods and real estate market, we are cutting off the infrastructure these smugglers rely on to operate.”

The couple is set to appear at a hearing in U.S. Magistrate Court on Friday to determine whether they should be held in federal custody pending trial. Khurana’s lawyer Nicholas Hart had no immediate comment on the case Thursday. Court records don’t show a defense attorney representing Zhang.

Zhang in the winter of 2020 was a 40-year-old cadet in APD’s law enforcement academy, but alleged in a subsequent lawsuit that she was forced to resign because she was discriminated against because of her age, gender and the fact that she was a naturalized citizen from China. She came to the U.S. about 15 years earlier.

The lawsuit, which is still pending, alleges she was mocked and ridiculed for her Chinese accent and was labeled “Cadet Covid” because of the pandemic spreading across the nation. She alleged an academy supervisor recommended she make a career move.

Some three years later, Zhang and Khurana were in the real estate business in Albuquerque, with Zhang managing properties Khurana directly or indirectly owned.

And they were involved in a conspiracy with human smugglers to rent out apartments and a town house for use as “stash houses” for illegal aliens who had been smuggled into the U.S., according to the indictment. They maintained numerous “long-term business relationships” with the smugglers in which they charged higher rates for the “stash house” properties, and discounted the rents when “business” was slow. They collected $2,000 per month in lease agreements for several such apartment units at 529-535 Utah NE.

Other properties noted in the indictment were an eight-unit complex at 919-923 Alvarado SE; a six-unit apartment complex at 1033-1037 Alvarado SE, and a three-story town house at 4505 Villa Loma NE.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday that the indictment charges the couple with warning smugglers of law enforcement activity, and continuing to lease apartments to the smugglers even after law enforcement found undocumented individuals at the properties.

In one instance, a smuggler described as “Co-Conspirator 2” was shot in the chest at the couple’s Villa Loma Lane town house on Sept. 2, 2024. When law enforcement officers responded, they found 12 migrants at the residence.

The next day, Zhang provided information from law enforcement reports to an associate of the wounded smuggler, and arranged for continued rent payments and payments for damage to the property, the indictment alleges.

When the smuggler’s profit slowed from transporting and harboring illegal aliens in January and February of this year, Zhang began making arrangements to move “Co-Conspirator 2” from the town house on Villa Loma Lane NE to one of the apartments on Alvarado Drive.

On March 7, several undocumented individuals were apprehended by law enforcement at one of the couple’s complexes, prompting a search of the property. Zhang later contacted associates of the smuggler who rented the apartments to continue their rental agreement, the indictment states.

In another incident March 18, eight undocumented individuals were found inside two of the apartments at 529 Utah NE after a reported migrant kidnapping. As part of the alleged conspiracy, the couple continued to rent apartments to the smugglers involved, “but at a different location to avoid the attention of law enforcement.”

The indictment also charges the couple with conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering and aiding and abetting.

They allegedly offered to sell real estate “for large cash payments while structuring the deals to avoid financial reporting requirements, including offering to use a third-party name and falsify sale records,” stated the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in describing court records in the case.