Overview

• Joseph Wong, Yicheng Zhang, Jose Somarriba, Shengsheng He and Jingliang Su admitted laundering over $36.9 million stolen from U.S. investors in a pig-butchering scheme that began in mid-2022.
• Authorities say co-conspirators used unsolicited social media messages, phone calls, texts and online dating to gain victims’ trust and promote fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.
• Laundered funds moved through U.S. shell companies into a single Axis Digital Limited account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas before conversion into the Tether stablecoin.
• Wong and Zhang face up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering conspiracy while He, Somarriba and Su face up to five years for operating an unlicensed money services business.
• Their pleas bring to eight the number of co-conspirators convicted in the global network behind the $6.5 billion reported theft in cryptocurrency investment scams last year.