Eleven people were arrested and arraigned in federal court for various investment-fraud and money-laundering scams that defrauded victims of $18 million in a so-called "pig butchering" scheme, the U.S. Department of Justice reported recently.
The all but one of the defendants appeared in federal court in Brooklyn before United States Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo on Oct. 13, the DOJ announced at the time. One unidentified defendant remains at large, according to the announcement. The alleged crimes "swindled" nearly 200 people of $18 million in a "sophisticated money-laundering scheme," according to Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
“These 11 arrests demonstrate the seriousness of financial fraud," Peace said in the report, "and the commitment of this Office and our law enforcement partners to rooting out bad actors and protecting victims.”
Gregory Armand, Chen Chen, Yanbin Chen, Yanbing Chen, Changgui Huang, Xin Jin, Jiahui Miao, Lingming Zeng, Jin Hua Zhang, Jin Fu Zhang and Hua Zhou were charged with offenses including "money laundering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, bank fraud conspiracy, passport fraud conspiracy, aggravated identity theft and conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business," the announcement reports.
Beginning in May 2021, the DOJ reports. the defendants colluded in a money-laundering scheme dubbed "Sha Zu Pan," or the "pig-butchering" scam, in which 200 people were convinced to send more than $18 million to purported money-manager accounts that was then allegedly stolen.
The defendants also converted approximately $52 million in cash to cashier's checks in an unlicensed money-transmitting service. The defendants used the illegal proceeds to open bank and cryptocurrency accounts using false names, forged passports and stolen identities, the DOJ reports.
“For once the name of a scam - pig butchering - reflects the grotesque nature of the harm it causes victims," Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael Driscoll said in the report. "We allege these fraudsters bled dry each of their victims and then used the money to set up fake cryptocurrency accounts."
Driscoll said the FBI knows there are "many more" victims of similar scams, and encouraged them to contact the FBI.
"We will do all we can to bring each and every criminal to justice,” he said.
The "pig butchering" case is part of ongoing investigations by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the FBI.
“Drug trafficking is often linked with other criminal activities like money laundering, fraud and conspiracy,” DEA Special Agent In Charge Frank Tarentino said in the report. “DEA’s partnership with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has resulted in shutting down a multi-million dollar investment fraud and money laundering scheme operating in our backyard. "
