Chinese Man Arrested in Bangkok Over Alleged $14 Million Crypto Ponzi Scheme

Thai authorities have arrested a Chinese national wanted for running a multimillion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme targeting nearly 100 people in China.

Police officers raided a three-storey luxury home in Bangkok’s Wang Thonglang area and arrested alleged suspect Liang Ai-Bing.

Investigators say Liang was part of an alleged five-person operation that built and promoted a fraudulent DeFi platform called “FINTOCH” between December 2022 and May 2023.

According to local media, he had been renting the property for about $4,645 a month since late last year. He lived alone and evaded Chinese law enforcement. report.

The operation followed intelligence cooperation between Thai and Chinese police, which led to a search warrant issued by the ICC, according to the report.

“Looks like the team behind the ponzi @DFintoch was probably scammed out of 31.6 million USDT on BSC after the funds were bridged to multiple addresses on Tron/Ethereum and people reported they couldn’t withdraw,” onchain sleuth ZachXBT tweeted in May 2023, exposing the scam.

Chinese authorities previously identified the other alleged members as Al Qing-Hua, Wu Jiang-Yan, Tang Zhen-Que and Zuo Lai-Jun. Zuo was arrested in China and released on bail; the others are said to have fled.

The platform, branded as ‘Morgan DF Fintoch’, falsely claimed to have ties to Morgan Stanley, a claim the investment bank publicly refuted in 2023. deny any association with the project.

FINTOCH even had a fake CEO named “Bob Lambert”, whose profile picture was actually that of actor Mike Provenzano, who had appeared in several short films and series.

Despite a warning from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in early May 2023, the founders earned more than $31 million in user funds before the platform collapsed.

Bug bounty platform Immunefi reported that the FINTOCH is pulling the rug was one of two major incidents which contributed to a 63% increase in crypto losses in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Liang is charged with illegal possession of firearms and unlawful entry into Thailand, with authorities coordinating his extradition to China, the report said.

The FINTOCH case bears similarities to broader crypto fraud operations that have devastated victims worldwide.

Earlier this month, the US announced it was looking for the forfeiture of 127,271 BTCworth more than $14.2 billion, from Chen Zhi, founder of Cambodia-based Prince Holding Group, in a case involving “pig slaughter” crypto scams that forced trafficked individuals to operate under the threat of violence.