California Man Pleads Guilty to Laundering More Than $20 Million

The second of four defendants charged in December with laundering tens of millions of dollars generated by cryptocurrency scams has agreed to plead guilty to a single conspiracy count.

As part of the plea agreement, filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California, Justin Walker admitted that he conspired with Lu Zhang, Joseph Wong, and Hailong Zhu to launder at least $20 million in proceeds generated by so-called pig-butchering scams.

Named for the practice of fattening livestock before slaughter, a pig-butchering scam is one that turns on gradually building a mark’s confidence before duping them ...