A victim told the authorities that she had liquidated her retirement accounts to invest with the crooks they had met online.
Here’s how to make sure your crypto remains safe
From the NFT carpet draws terrorist funding, here are the scams that you should monitor – and what to do if you are the victim of a cryptographic crime.
Andrea Kramar and Hye-Su Jun, USA Today
Federal officials try to grasp more than $ 6 million in cryptocurrency who, according to them, represent the poorly acquired gains of a Chinese couple “Pig butcher “Scam Leaved when they fled in the United States one step ahead of the cops.
Prosecutors say that the $ 6 million seated in four electronic portfolios were left behind by Feng Chen and Tianqiong XU while they run away in China last year, a few days after the FBI searched their house. They were charged in June 2024 by a great federal jury in Vermont.
The judicial files submitted on May 22 indicate that the married couple specifically targets people of the Chinese heritage across the United States. Prosecutors accuse the couple of tear at least $ 9.5 million at least 120 victims, operating in their five -bedroom house in Frisco, Texas.
According to court documents, Chen and Xu encouraged people to think that they were investing in the cryptocurrency while the couple simulated applications, emails and online files, and deposited money in their own cryptographic wallets. The victims have obtained regular reports that have shown that their investments have gained in value, the investigators said.
“Pig Butchering” is the name given to the scams in which crooks establish a relationship with their targets over time, then fly their money. In some cases, as with other frauds such as Ponzi’s programs, the crooks work in a specific community, such as a group of church or a neighborhood. Federal officials said Chen and Xu had found their goals in Chinese -language investment chat rooms.
“From at least in January 2021 and continuing until January 2024 (they) created a program to defraud the victims of funds by encouraging victims to invest in cryptocurrency using fraudulent investment applications on cryptocurrencies,” wrote prosecutors in a criminal complaint. “The program had an impact on 100 victims in the United States and abroad … and led to the theft of millions of dollars of the victims.”
A victim based in Vermont liquidated his retirement account and transferred $ 600,000 to the couple, according to court documents. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Etherium are largely unregulated and are increasingly associated with scams. Last year, the FBI said that the Americans had lost more than $ 5.6 billion in cryptocurrency fraud, in part because it is so easy to buy it and transfer it electronically outside the normal banking system.
The judicial files show that the FBI agents searched the couple’s home at the end of 2023 but did not stop them at that time. A few days later, the family obtained passports from the Chinese embassy in Houston and fled to China with their two children, according to legal files. The FBI and the secret services have traced their scam network since 2021, according to the judicial archives.
The FBI said that Chen is from Wuhan, and that he has attended universities in Wyoming and Louisiana, where he obtained master’s degrees in oil engineering and geology. FBI agents said that CHEN had used the same IT skills that he developed at school to create false applications and chatbots to deceive their victims.
The TWP has been burnt out in absentia by a great federal jury of Vermont and will be prosecuted for wire fraud and money laundering if they return to the United States.
