A court there in the United States sentenced a guy to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a scam with cryptocurrencies. The scheme was heavy: fraud and money laundering that totaled about 73 million dollars (around 380 million reais). The detail is that the guy, Daren Li, fled after cutting off his electronic ankle bracelet and was convicted even without appearing at the trial.
This Daren Li has dual citizenship, from China and Saint Kitts and Nevis, and was caught for involvement in an international cryptocurrency fraud ring. According to prosecutors, he targeted American victims using social media, dating sites, and even a fake trading platform. The scam was that one called “pig slaughtering”: the accomplices gained people's trust with small talk and then pushed them to fake websites or pretended to be technical support to extract money.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court also gave three years of supervised release. Li had already confessed in November 2024 that he participated in money laundering. He was the first in the group to be sentenced, but eight others have also admitted guilt. In the United States alone, nearly 60 million dollars passed through shell companies before turning into cryptocurrency.
Experts say that these scam centers, like the one Li operated in Cambodia, are already being compared to the largest industries of organized crime, even rivaling drug trafficking and ransomware. The difference is that they operate non-stop, always with new victims, and cryptocurrency makes it very easy to move and hide the money.
The situation is so serious that Interpol has already classified these schemes as a global threat, affecting people in over 60 countries. And it's not just in the U.S.: recently China sentenced to death members of families who led fraud gangs in Southeast Asia, involved in billions of dollars and even deaths.
