As per the most recent information, five men have pleaded guilty to their involvement in a sophisticated $36.9 million international crypto scam that was designed solely to victimize Americans.
The information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California notes that the group employed an elaborate fraud scheme, utilizing shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to collect the stolen funds.
Further, the stolen funds were converted into USDT and then transferred to a wallet operated from a scam centre in Cambodia.
The guilty pleas mark a significant milestone in the U.S government’s ongoing crackdown on international crypto scams and money laundering operations, particularly those orchestrated from Asia.
Following this scam, authorities have raised concerns over the growing number of such scams linked to Southeast Asian crypto scam hubs, which often involve complex money trails and unregulated crypto exchanges.
This case also drew attention to broader national security risks, with ties being investigated between these operations and the North Korean state-sponsored hacking collective, Lazarus Group.
The U.S authorities have continued collaborating with international agencies to trace the stolen assets and hold perpetrators accountable, signalling a strong stance against cross-border financial crime that exploits blockchain anonymity and targets unsuspecting victims through fake investment scams and romance scams.
It is worth noting that defendants Joseph Wong, Yicheng Zhang, Jose Somarriba, Shengsheng He, and Jingliang Su have used social media and dating applications, involving victims in lengthy messages and even calling them to gain their trust. This further helps scammers make victims invest in their bogus crypto scheme.
The Department of Justice said, “ Scammers would tell victims that their investments were appreciating in value when, in fact, those funds were stolen and not invested at all.”
It also highlights that “ Somarriba and He founded Axis Digital and opened the Deltec Bank account. Su joined Axis Digital as a director and participated in the digital asset conversions and transfers of victim funds.”
Scams in crypto have been at their peak for the past few years
Over the past few years, scammers have continued to trouble the digital assets market by targeting crypto holders by using different scamming techniques involving rug pull, Ponzi scam, pig butchering, social engineering, and others.
According to available stats, the crypto market lost $1.4 billion annually from 2022 to 2024, with $472 million alone in Q1 2025. From 2016 to 2018, the ICO exit scam totaled $98.6 million.
Several available reports note that scammers, the majority of the time, use names of popular celebrities or personalities to launch bogus projects, as by using names and images, they can lure more and more investors.
Phishing scam and wallet draining scam in 2024 collectively wiped out over $1.2 billion in crypto, social media initiated 42% of investment scams contacts in Q1, 2025, with platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp being the most common.