Five men pleaded guilty to a crypto scam involving the theft of $36.9 million from American victims via counterfeit stock market investments. They laundered the stolen money in Cambodia after converting it into USDT and transferring it using foreign-controlled cryptocurrency wallets.
The United States Attorney’s Office reported that the group victimized victims on social media, messaging apps, and dating sites. Leaders of the operation were Joseph Wong, Yicheng Zhang, Jose Somarriba, Shengsheng He, and Jingliang Su from diverse countries.
The scammers earned the trust of victims through phone and chat and later persuaded victims to invest in what they believed might be a new and developing crypto project. Never actually invested, the money instead rapidly flowed into offshore accounts held by the scam ring.
Somarriba formed a shell company known as Axis Digital and opened a Deltec Bank account in the Bahamas. The latter account received most of the funds stolen from American victims. Su served as a director and facilitated the laundering of stolen money into USDT for easy transfer to offshore wallets.
Crypto scam funds routed through Cambodia
Wong ran the money laundering scheme and wired the money into foreign accounts outside the United States. Zhang controlled two American bank accounts and processed and laundered the scam amounts there before sending them abroad. The money ended up in Cambodian crypto scam hubs connected with criminal groups.
Wong and Zhang could face imprisonment for up to 20 years for money laundering conspiracy after they pleaded guilty. The remaining three, Su, Somarriba, and He, could face five years for operating an unlicensed money services business. Su has been in prison since November 2024 and will be sentenced on November 17 of this year.
A total of five, including these five, have now pleaded guilty in this network of crypto crime. U.S. regulators are also alleging Cambodia’s Huione Group assisted North Korea’s Lazarus Group in laundering billions of dollars of crypto. The investigators have identified Huione leveraging Telegram-based services such as Haowang and Xinbi for channeling illicit money transfers.
