Free Republic

David Tran fled communist Vietnam in December 1978 on the Huey Fong, a Panamanian freighter that carried Tran and more than 3,000 other refugees to freedom. According to a 2013 profile in the LA TImes, Tran and his family settled in Los Angeles, where he soon realized he couldn’t find work or a hot sauce that he liked. Tran began to make his own hot sauce and sold it in Chinatown. He named it after its place of origin (Si Racha, Thailand) and started a company in 1980, Huy Fong, which he named after the freighter that brought him to the United...

NOTE The following snippet is a quote: losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/la050911.htm Southern California Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Convictions in Smuggling Schemes, Including Plot to Bring Surface-to-Air Missiles Into United States LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man was sentenced this morning to 25 years in federal prison after being convicted on a series of federal charges related to schemes to smuggle many items into the United States, including surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down aircraft. Yi Qing Chen, 49, of Rosemead, California, received the 300-month sentence from United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer. Last October, following a two-week trial, a...