Briefly
- Chen Zhi, the alleged mastermind of a "pig butchering" crypto fraud ring, was arrested in Cambodia.
- Zhi was indicted by the U.S. Division of Justice in October and charged with wire fraud and cash laundering conspiracy.
- His crypto fraud community allegedly stole billions from customers globally, with almost $12 billion in Bitcoin from the operations now held by the U.S. authorities.
The alleged mastermind of a rip-off ring that stole billions of {dollars}’ value of property from people within the U.S. and throughout the globe was arrested Tuesday in Cambodia and extradited to China, based on a Wall Avenue Journal report.
Chen Zhi, a Cambodian nationwide and the founder and chairman of Prince Holding Group, was charged in October with wire fraud conspiracy and cash laundering conspiracy for his function within the operation of rip-off compounds that stole billions from victims.
As a part of the scheme, Zhi’s conglomerate held people in opposition to their will at compounds and compelled them to run crypto fraud schemes, generally known as “pig butchering” scams, through which they constructed relationships with unsuspecting customers earlier than stealing their funds. These scams get their title from the method of fattening a pig earlier than it’s slaughtered.
Zhi’s rip-off community grew its stolen proceeds to greater than 127,271 Bitcoin valued round $11.6 billion at immediately’s Bitcoin costs. These funds, at present within the custody of the U.S. authorities, are being sought by the Division of Justice as a part of the most important civil seizure and forfeiture motion within the division’s historical past.
Alongside the October indictment, the Division of Justice designated Prince Group as a transnational legal group and sanctioned Zhi and different related people.
The indictment detailed that Zhi’s group trafficked a whole lot of staff to a number of compounds in Cambodia to run its fraud community. He immediately managed the compounds and saved detailed data on every whereas additionally guiding associates to make use of crypto to assist obscure the group’s earnings.
A number of the proceeds have been in the end utilized by Zhi and his associates for luxurious journey and lavish purchases, together with a Pablo Picasso portray.
Whereas Zhi’s scams accounted for almost $12 billion in seized funds associated to illicit actions, a report from Chainalysis signifies that on-chain crypto balances associated to legal exercise exceeds $75 billion.
Illicit entities held almost $15 billion in funds on their very own final July—a greater than 300% achieve since 2020—the majority of which come from stolen funds, based on the report.
