US Seizes $225.3 Million in Cryptocurrency Linked to Investment Fraud and Scams
Trump team focuses on cryptocurrency crimes, and five men operating from Cambodia who scammed $36 million from victims.
Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that her office has seized more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency connected to a vast international fraud and money laundering network.
This operation, described as the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history, targeted funds linked to online investment scams that defrauded hundreds of victims worldwide, including a number of Americans.
It’s the largest-ever seizure of funds stolen in so-called “crypto confidence” scams, which dupe people into investing in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes, the department said.
The scam affected more than 400 people worldwide, including dozens of Americans, and caused millions of dollars in losses, according to a complaint unsealed Wednesday. The scammers conducted “hundreds of thousands” of transactions in an effort to launder the stolen cryptocurrency, according to the Justice Department.
…Losses from crypto investment scams have surged in recent years. Victims reported nearly $4 billion in crypto-related investment losses in 2023 compared to $2.57 billion in 2022, according to the FBI. That number increased to $5.8 billion in 2024.
The seized funds are now subject to forfeiture proceedings aimed at eventually returning money to victims.
The U.S. Secret Service and FBI used blockchain analysis and other tools to trace the cryptocurrency back to stolen assets. The DOJ credited Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, for assisting in the operation.
According to the complaint, the funds were linked to the theft and laundering of money from victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, commonly known as confidence scams that often involve romance.
The network relied on hundreds of thousands of transactions to obscure the origin of the funds, using sophisticated blockchain maneuvers to conceal the flow of stolen assets.
The Trump administration is clearly moving to protect Americans from crypto scams. Last week, the DOJ found five men (whop operated out of Cambodia) guilty of laundering over $36 million from victims.
The defendants, Joseph Wong, Yicheng Zhang, Jose Somarriba, Shengsheng He, and Jingliang Su, used various tactics to build trust with victims before convincing them to invest in fake crypto ventures. The victims’ funds were never invested and were instead stolen outright. The scammers falsely claimed the investments were gaining value to keep the victims engaged.
The laundering operation was sophisticated and multinational. Somarriba and He created a shell company called “Axis Digital” and opened a Deltec Bank account in the Bahamas to receive the funds. Su played a key role in converting stolen money into USDT, while Wong managed a laundering network that moved funds through international bank accounts. Zhang operated two US-based bank accounts to process the illegal proceeds. The stolen assets were eventually sent to the orchestrators of the scam based in Cambodia.
Zhang and Wong now face up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to launder money, and are among the most severely charged. The remaining three men could face up to five years each for conspiring to run an unlicensed money services business. Su is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 17. These developments bring the total number of guilty pleas in connection with the scam to eight, including previous admissions of guilt from Daren Li and Lu Zhang for similar charges.
Five plead guilty to laundering $36 million stolen in investment scams
Five men from China, the U.S., and Turkey pleaded guilty to laundering nearly $37 million stolen from Americans through cryptocurrency investment scams operated from Cambodia. Using fake identities, scammers… pic.twitter.com/ZS8zUQ7m4b
— dCypher (@dCypherIO) June 11, 2025
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Even legit crypto currency strikes me as a scam. Money on the other hand is legal payment of debts. Crypto is not. One has the law behind it, the other doesn’t.
Having lived in a state where one could not buy liquor except from state-operated outlets — but within 10 miles of a border we could cross to buy as much as we wanted from free-market commercial liquor stores for 40-60% less (modulo our state’s dilettante attempts at border enforcement) — I chortle mightily at your foolishness.
By the way, what law does gold or silver have to back them? What law do they really need?
Hey, Hardin — next time you get a traffic ticket, try to pay it in cash. Argue “legal tender for all debts, public and private,” just like it says right on the certificates. Have somebody video it to entertain us later..
I haven’t used cash in probably a decade or more. I pay in dollars though. Except once in Australian dollars for a Tiffany Eckhardt album.
No, it isn’t. Money is anything people will readily accept in trade, confident that when they want to spend it whoever they offer it to will also accept it. It makes no difference what the law has to say about it.
What you are talking about is legal tender, which is a kind of money. If something is legal tender, i.e.the law says if you tender it in payment of a debt the debt is discharged and is no longer enforceable, then people will accept it and it will thus become money. But it’s that acceptance that makes it money, not the law that causes them to be willing to accept it.
The law produces the acceptance. That’s why dealing in dollars works. The law and its enforcement of contracts is what makes it a free market economy and not a “hit the guy on the head and take his stuff” economy. Don’t take the law as a slight matter. It saves you a lot on defense.
Pirrio should get a raise. She’s been doing yeowoman’s work since being installed.
“using sophisticated blockchain maneuvers to conceal the flow of stolen assets.”
Were we not all told early on that one of the basic advantages of the blockchain was the impossibility of precisely such laundering techniques?
I am still unable to understand how anyone would want to invest in undermining of the U.S. Dollar.