Five men from China, the United States, and Turkey have now pleaded guilty for their direct involvement in a major international crime ring. They admitted to laundering nearly $37 million that was stolen from many United States victims in various different cryptocurrency investment scams. These elaborate and convincing scams were all carried out from the Southeast Asian country of Cambodia, targeting unsuspecting American citizens. Accomplices who were living abroad reached out to targets in the United States via unsolicited social media messages, phone calls, and text messages.
More than $36.9 million that was “invested” by the numerous victims was then transferred from various United States bank accounts. These funds were sent to a specific account at Deltec Bank, which is located in the Bahamas, under a shell company’s name. The five men pleaded guilty to helping launder these stolen funds through various U.S. shell companies and multiple international bank accounts. Joseph Wong led a network of money launderers in Los Angeles who created shell companies and used U.S. bank accounts to wire funds. Yicheng Zhang also managed two other U.S. bank accounts that were used by the criminal organization to launder all the stolen funds.
They promoted fraudulent digital asset investments and falsely claimed the victims’ funds’ value had significantly increased after they invested their money.
Jose Somarriba and Shengsheng He founded the shell company Axis Digital and opened the Deltec Bank account used in the scheme. Jingliang Su, a national of both China and Turkey, joined the illicit operation later as a director, handling cryptocurrency conversions and transfers. These three men used the Deltec Bank to convert all the victim funds into the Tether (USDT) stablecoin for easy transfer. From there, their accomplices then sent the laundered USDT to a digital wallet located in Cambodia and to various regional scam center leaders. This complex process was designed to effectively obscure the illicit origin of all the stolen funds from authorities.
So far, a total of eight co-conspirators who were part of this international crime ring have now pleaded guilty to various charges.
So far, a total of eight co-conspirators who were part of this international crime ring have now pleaded guilty to various charges. This includes the Chinese nationals Daren Li and Yicheng Zhang, who were arrested in April 2024 for allegedly leading the crime ring. They laundered at least $73 million from cryptocurrency investment scams, also known as pig butchering or even romance baiting scams. The FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Report warned that investment scammers stole over $6.5 billion last year from thousands of victims. This is a significant increase when compared to the $4.57 billion that was stolen in the year 2023. This highlights a growing and very concerning trend in online fraud.
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