WHAT HAPPENED
On January 27th a federal court sentenced Chinese national Jingliang Su to 46 months in prison for his role in a cryptocurrency pig butchering scam that stole $36.9 million from 174 Americans. Su and his co-conspirators operated out of scam centers in Cambodia, contacting victims through social media, dating apps, and unsolicited text messages before steering them toward fake crypto trading platforms that made their “investments” appear to be growing. When victims tried to withdraw their money it was already gone — converted to Tether stablecoin and moved to digital wallets in Southeast Asia.
WHY IT MATTERS
This case is part of an accelerating DOJ enforcement wave targeting transnational crypto fraud networks. Eight co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty in this case alone. What’s significant here is the money movement architecture — US shell companies, international bank accounts, and stablecoin conversions were all used to layer and obscure stolen funds. Federal prosecutors are now intimately familiar with exactly this pattern, which means anyone whose crypto transactions touch similar structures — even unknowingly — is potentially in investigative crosshairs.
WHO SHOULD PAY ATTENTION
If you have sent cryptocurrency to an investment platform you found through social media, a dating app, or an unsolicited message — regardless of whether you believe you were scammed — you should understand your exposure. Victims in these cases sometimes find themselves questioned as potential participants rather than just witnesses.
DEFENSE NOTE
If you have been contacted by federal investigators in connection with a digital asset investment platform or believe you may have been swept into a scheme like this, consult with a federal criminal defense attorney before responding to any government inquiry. Zerillo Law Firm handles federal crypto matters — contact us at zerillolaw.com.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, January 27, 2026 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-sentenced-prison-role-crypto-scam-targeting-americans
About the Author
Michael J. Conley is a former federal prosecutor with nearly 25 years in federal law enforcement. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Maine and as Chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He secured one of the first federal convictions in the country for operating an unlicensed Bitcoin money service business — a landmark prosecution that helped establish Bitcoin as money under federal law at a time when that legal question remained largely unsettled. He is Of Counsel at Zerillo Law Firm, where he focuses on federal cryptocurrency criminal defense. Contact the firm at zerillolaw.com