{"id":50900,"date":"2025-10-15T04:11:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=50900"},"modified":"2025-10-15T04:11:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:11:52","slug":"bitcoin-worth-14bn-seized-in-us-uk-crackdown-on-alleged-scammers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=50900","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin worth $14bn seized in US-UK crackdown on alleged scammers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US government has seized over $14bn (\u00a310.5bn) in bitcoin and charged the founder of a Cambodian business empire with allegedly masterminding a massive cryptocurrency scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi was charged on Tuesday in New York for allegedly engaging in a wire-fraud conspiracy and running a money laundering scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Chen’s businesses were sanctioned by the US and the UK as part of a joint operation. The UK government says it has frozen assets owned by his network, including 19 properties in London – one of which is worth nearly \u00a3100m ($133m).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC has contacted the Prince Holding Group for comment. An email sent to its general inquiries address was returned undelivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US prosecutors say it is one the biggest financial takedowns in history and the largest ever seizure of bitcoin, with approximately 127,271 bitcoin being held by US government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Chen, who remains at large, is accused of being the mastermind behind a “sprawling cyber-fraud empire” operating under his multi-national company, the Prince Group, said the US Department of Justice (DOJ)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cambodia-based group’s website says its businesses include property development, and financial and consumer services. But the DOJ alleges that it runs one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unwitting victims were contacted online and convinced to transfer cryptocurrency based on false promises that the funds would be invested and generate profits, the DOJ said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors alleged that the company, under Mr Chen’s direction, built and operated at least ten scam compounds throughout Cambodia, according to court documents seen by the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Chen was accused of managing the compounds and tracked profits from the scams, said prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His accomplices allegedly procured millions of mobile phone numbers and set up “phone farms” to conduct call centre scams, according to the court documents.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of these facilities had 1,250 mobile phones that controlled around 76,000 social media accounts for scams, the documents said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: The US government has seized over $14bn (\u00a310.5bn) in bitcoin and charged the founder of a Cambodian business empire with allegedly masterminding a massive cryptocurrency scam. UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi was charged on Tuesday in New York for allegedly engaging in a wire-fraud conspiracy and running a money laundering scheme. Mr Chen’s businesses were sanctioned by the US and the UK as part of a joint operation. The UK government says it has frozen assets owned by his network, including 19 properties in London – one of which is worth nearly \u00a3100m ($133m). The BBC has contacted… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50902,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50900\/revisions\/50902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}