DOJ seizes $15 billion in bitcoin in pig butchering fraud
Ministry of Justice Approximately 15 billion dollars worth of goods were seized bitcoin Cryptocurrency wallets owned by a man who oversaw a massive “pig slaughter” fraud operation based in Cambodia were held in wallets, prosecutors said Tuesday.
This seizure is the Department of Justice’s largest seizure in history.
The indictment charging alleged pork butcher Chen Zhi was unsealed Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Zhi, also known as “Vincent,” remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Zhi was identified in court records as the founder and chairman of Prince Holding Group, a Cambodia-based multinational conglomerate that operates dozens of business entities in more than 30 countries.
Prince Group’s operation involved “forced labor fraud compounds throughout Cambodia,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
“Individuals held against their will in compounds involved in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes known as ‘hog butchering’ scams that steal billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world,” the statement said.
According to the office, the scam tricked people communicating through social media and online messaging apps into transferring cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by the scheme with false promises that the cryptocurrency would be invested and generate profits.
“In reality, funds were stolen from the victims and laundered for the benefit of the perpetrators,” the statement said. “Scammers often build relationships with their victims over time and gain their trust before stealing their money.”
Prosecutors said hundreds of people were kidnapped and forced to work in fraudulent compounds “often under threat of violence.”
According to prosecutors, Zhi and a network of Prince Group’s top executives are accused of using political influence in multiple countries to protect their criminal enterprises and bribing public officials to avoid law enforcement actions targeting the scheme.
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