US Seizes Bitcoin Worth $15 Billion in ‘Pig-Butchering’ Case (3)

The chairman of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group was charged Tuesday by the US with running a “sprawling cyber fraud empire” that led to the seizure of Bitcoin worth about $15 billion in what prosecutors called the largest ever forfeiture action.

Chen Zhi, 38, who heads Phnom Penh-based Prince Group, was charged by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, with engaging in a wire-fraud conspiracy and operating a money-laundering scheme. Chen’s operation allegedly used forced-labor in Cambodia to emotionally manipulate thousands of victims in the US and around the world, fattening their accounts and then draining them in a practice ...