Chen Zhi, founder and CEO of Prince Group, was charged with overseeing a multinational “pig butchering” fraud operation.
Provided by: U.S. Department of the Treasury
The Justice Department seized approximately $15 billion worth of property. Bitcoin Prosecutors said Tuesday that the money was stored in a cryptocurrency wallet owned by a man who oversaw a massive Cambodia-based “pig butchering” fraud operation.
The seizure is the largest forfeiture case ever pursued by the Department of Justice.
On Tuesday, an indictment was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging Chen Zhi, an alleged pig butcher, with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
Ji, a 38-year-old Chinese-born immigrant also known as “Vincent,” remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. If Gee is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 40 years in prison.
He was identified in court filings as the founder and chairman of Cambodia-based multinational conglomerate Prince Holding Group, which prosecutors said had “secretly grown into one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organizations.” Prince Group is said to be operating 10 fraudulent facilities in Cambodia.
In a parallel action on Tuesday, the Treasury Department designated the Prince Group as a transnational criminal organization and announced sanctions against more than 100 individuals and entities associated with Zhi for alleged illegal activities.
Organization chart of The Prince Group’s transnational criminal organization
US Treasury
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocera said Gee “directed the largest investment fraud operation in history and fueled an illegal industry that had reached rampant proportions.”
“Prince Group’s investment fraud has cost billions of dollars in losses and untold misery to victims around the world, including here in New York, on the backs of people who were trafficked and forced into labor against their will,” Nocera said.
Prince Group, which has operations in more than 30 countries, operated “fraudulent forced labor facilities throughout Cambodia,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
The document detailed the completion of two specific facilities that housed 1,250 mobile phones managing 76,000 accounts on the popular social media platform.
Source: Eastern District of New York
“Individuals were held against their will at a facility involved in a cryptocurrency investment fraud scheme known as the ‘pig butchering’ scam that stole billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world,” the release states.
The scam tricked people contacted through social media and online messaging applications into transferring cryptocurrencies to accounts managed by the scheme with false promises that the cryptocurrencies would be invested and earned, the firm said.
“In reality, the funds were stolen from the victims and laundered for the benefit of the perpetrators,” the release said. “Scam perpetrators often took the time to build relationships with their victims and gain their trust before stealing funds.”
Prosecutors said hundreds of people were trafficked and forced to work in fraudulent facilities “often under threat of violence.”
Mr. Gee and a network of Prince Group executives are accused of using political influence in multiple countries to protect their criminal enterprise and paying bribes to public officials to avoid law enforcement action targeting the scheme, prosecutors said.
