A Massachusetts man learned his fate yesterday in Boston federal court, receiving a 78-month prison sentence for his part in a series of violent spa robberies that involved duct-taping and assaulting victims.
Li Wen Tang, 33, of Malden, wasn’t alone in his scheme. He teamed up with two other crooks, Alfeu Barbosa and Jonas Nunez, to terrorize two massage parlors in the Boston area in June 2022.
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Tang’s role was to play the unsuspecting customer, lulling the victims into a false sense of security. Once inside, he’d signal his accomplices, who’d burst in with guns blazing, ready to unleash chaos.
In one particularly harrowing incident, Tang tricked a lone female employee at Balance Reflexology Spa in Brookline. While she was distracted, his masked partners stormed in, pistol-whipped her, and dragged her around by her hair. They then bound and gagged her with duct tape, ransacking the spa and making off with cash and her phone.
Later that night, the trio struck again at May’s Spa Massage in Stoneham, using the same brutal tactics on multiple victims.
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Tang’s partners in crime have already faced justice. Nunez got 23 months, while Barbosa, who opted for a trial and lost, is serving a whopping 121 months.
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