Californian man convicted in $ 37 million crypto -wamid in the midst of continuous Doj performance

Shengsheng, a man in California who helped in money laundering of nearly $ 37 million stolen from American investors through a global cryptocurrency scam, was sentenced on Monday to 51 months in the federal prison and ordered $ 26.9 million in a refund, said Federal Officers of Justice.

A resident of La Puente, California, argued in April guilty of conspiracy to exploit a company without a permit.

According to the Ministry of Justice, he is co-ownership of Axis Digital Limited, a company located in Bahamas that was used to receive and transfer victims funds.

The schedule was based on unsolicited messages, phone calls and dating app conversations to build trust in victims.

“The fellow-samenwiers then promoted fraudulent investments in digital assets at the victims,” ​​wrote the Doj. “Scammers would tell victims that their investments were valued in value when the funds that the victims were stolen to the scammers were stolen.”

After victims had sent money, the funds on a digital account of a single axis at Deltec Bank were led in the Bahamas and then converted into the Tether (USDT) Stablecoin and moved to Wallets, checked by the scammers.

Authorities said the funds were led through Shell companies and overseas accounts to hide their origins.

Prosecutors said the scam operated from Cambodian “pig secretion” centers, where criminals use social engineering to cheat victims.

VarkensAfbeksliggen are typically high volume digital fraud schemes and yielded $ 9 billion in 2024 according to chain analysis. Victims believed they invested in legitimate digital assets, but their money was washed in a network of accounts over several countries.

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a request for comments Decodeer.

He is part of a broader action against crypto-related fraud. In recent months, the Ministry of Justice has seized digital assets related to terrorist financing, returned millions to victims of investment fraud and targeted offshore exchanges used to launch illegal funds.

In March, prosecutors seized $ 201,000 in crypto linked to Hamas. In July the DOJ started to return $ 7.1 million to victims of an oil and gas fraud scheme of $ 97 million.

Authorities have also removed domains connected to Russian -run fairs of processing more than $ 800 million in illegal transactions.

Eight conspirators have guilty in the digital matter of Axis, including Jose Somarriba and Jingliang Su, two of the business partners. Su, a Chinese national, helped stolen funds to convert and transfer.