A Chinese crypto fraudster was sentenced to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay US$26.9 million in restitution in a U.S. court for his role in operating offshore scam centres that created websites to dupe investors by posing as real crypto trading platforms.
Last June, Jingliang Su pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal money transmitting business. Now, he has been sentenced in a California court for his role in laundering more than US$36.9 million that was generated from crypto scams that solicited investors through social media, and unsolicited phone calls and texts.
According to court filings, Su and his co-conspirators laundered investors’ money through various U.S. shell companies, international bank accounts and digital asset wallets.
Specifically, U.S. authorities alleged that more than US$36.9 million was transferred from U.S. bank accounts to an account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas, which was then converted into the stablecoin Tether, and transferred to a digital wallet controlled from Cambodia.
So far, eight co-conspirators have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the scheme.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) stressed that it has stepped up its fight against these kinds of large-scale offshore crypto frauds.
“In the digital age, criminals have found new ways to weaponize the internet for fraud,” said Tysen Duva, assistant attorney general in the DoJ’s criminal division, in a release.
“The criminal division and its law enforcement partners have continued to evolve and caught large-scale scammers, who target people through their phones, social media, and fake internet sites, steal from them, and then move their money through cryptocurrency and wire transfers outside of the United States,” he added.