The Justice Department has seized about $15 billion Bitcoin Prosecutors on Tuesday found cryptocurrency wallets belonging to a man who oversaw a massive “pig slaughter” fraud operation in Cambodia.
The seizure is the DOJ’s largest forfeiture action in history.
An indictment against alleged pig slaughterer Chen Zhi on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering was dismissed Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Zhi, a 38-year-old Chinese-born émigré who is also known as “Vincent,” remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Zhi faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of these charges.
He was identified in court documents as the founder and chairman of the Prince Holding Group, a multinational business conglomerate based in Cambodia that prosecutors say has “secretly developed … into one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organizations.” The Prince Group allegedly operates 10 fraud complexes in Cambodia.
In parallel, the Treasury Department on Tuesday designated the Prince Group as a transnational criminal organization and announced sanctions against the Zhi and more than 100 individuals and organizations associated with it over their roles in suspected illegal activities.
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Diagram of the transnational criminal organization The Prince Group
US Treasury Department
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella of Brooklyn said that Zhi “led one of the largest investment fraud operations in history, fueling an illegal industry that is reaching epidemic proportions.”
“Prince Group’s investment frauds have caused billions of dollars in losses and untold suffering to victims around the world, including here in New York, on the backs of people who were trafficked and forced to work against their will,” Nocella said.
The Prince Group, which operates businesses in more than 30 countries, “operated forced labor fraud centers” throughout Cambodia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
The documents detailed the completion of two special facilities equipped with 1,250 cell phones and controlling 76,000 accounts on a popular social media platform.
Source: US Eastern District of New York
“Individuals held against their will in the facilities are involved in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes known as the ‘hog slaughter scam’ that have stolen billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world,” the press release said.
According to the bureau, the scams tricked people contacted through social media and online messaging applications into transferring cryptocurrencies to accounts controlled by the system with false promises that the cryptocurrencies would be invested and generate profits.
“In reality, the funds were stolen from the victims and laundered for the benefit of the perpetrators,” the press release states. “Scammers often build relationships with their victims over time and gain their trust before stealing their money.”
Prosecutors said hundreds of people fell victim to human trafficking and were forced to work in the scams, “often under threat of violence.”
According to prosecutors, Zhi and a network of top Prince Group executives are accused of using political influence in several countries to protect their criminal enterprise and paying bribes to officials to prevent law enforcement action.