Five men from China, the United States, and Turkey pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international crime ring and laundering nearly $37 million stolen from U.S. victims in cryptocurrency investment scams carried out from Cambodia.
Accomplices living abroad reached out to targets in the United States via unsolicited social media, phone calls, text messages, and online dating services to gain their trust, promoting fraudulent digital asset investments and falsely claiming that the victims’ funds’ value increased after they tricked them into investing, when, in fact, their money was stolen.
More than $36.9 million “invested” by the victims was transferred from U.S. bank accounts to an account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas, which had been opened under the name Axis Digital Limited.
The five men (Joseph Wong of Alhambra, Yicheng Zhang of China, Jose Somarriba of Los Angeles, Shengsheng He of La Puente, and Jingliang Su of China and Turkey) pleaded guilty to helping launder the stolen funds through U.S. shell companies, as well as multiple international bank accounts and digital asset wallets.
Wong led a network of money launderers in Los Angeles who created shell companies and used U.S. bank accounts to wire victim funds internationally. Zhang also managed two other U.S. bank accounts that were used to launder stolen funds.
Somarriba and He founded Axis Digital and opened the Deltec Bank account, while Su joined the operation later as a director, handling cryptocurrency conversions and transfers.
The three men used Deltec Bank to convert victim funds into Tether (USDT) stablecoin and transfer them to a digital wallet in Cambodia. From there, their accomplices sent the USDT to various regional scam center leaders.
Eight co-conspirators pleaded guilty
Zhang has been in custody since May 2024, while Su was arrested in November 2024. Zhang and Wong pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy, each facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Zhang, Somarriba, and Su have also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money services business, facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
So far, eight co-conspirators part of this crime ring have pleaded guilty, including Chinese nationals Daren Li and Yicheng Zhang, who were arrested in April 2024 and charged one month later for allegedly leading a crime ring that laundered at least $73 million from cryptocurrency investment scams, also known as pig butchering or romance baiting.
In December, the U.S. Justice Department charged four other suspects for their alleged involvement in another massive pig butchering scheme linked to over $80 million in victim losses.
The FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Report [PDF] warned that investment scammers stole over $6.5 billion last year (according to 47,919 complaints) compared to $4.57 billion in 2023.
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