Chinese national Jingliang Su was sentenced today to 46 months in prison for his role in laundering more than $36.9 million from victims in a digital asset investment conspiracy that was carried out from scam centers in Cambodia.
The court also ordered Su to pay $26,867,242.44 in restitution. Su pleaded guilty in June 2025 to one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal money transmitting business.
“This defendant and his co-conspirators scammed 174 Americans out of their hard-earned money. In the digital age, criminals have found new ways to weaponize the internet for fraud. The Criminal Division and its law enforcement partners have continued to evolve and caught large-scale scammers, who target people through their phones, social media, and fake internet sites, steal from them, and then move their money through cryptocurrency and wire transfers outside of the United States.” - Assistant Attorney General Tyson
“New investment opportunities may sound intriguing, but they have a dark side: attracting criminals who, in this case, stole then laundered tens of millions of dollars from their victims. I thank our law enforcement partners for their efforts at bringing this defendant to justice and I encourage the investing public to be cautious. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” - First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California
Su was part of an international criminal network that induced U.S. victims to transfer funds to accounts controlled by co-conspirators, who then laundered victim money through U.S. shell companies, international bank accounts, and digital asset wallets. The cycle of the scheme began when overseas co-conspirators contacted U.S. victims via unsolicited social media interactions, telephone calls, text messages, and online dating services to gain the victims’ trust. The co-conspirators promoted fraudulent digital asset investments to the victims. The co-conspirators created fake websites that resembled real cryptocurrency trading platforms and convinced victims to send funds through the fake websites for investments.
The scammers would then tell the victims that their investments were appreciating in value when, in fact, the scammers had stolen the victims’ money. More than $36.9 million in victim funds were transferred from U.S. bank accounts controlled by the co-conspirators to a single account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas. Su and other co-conspirators directed Deltec Bank to convert victim funds to the stablecoin Tether, $USDT and to transfer the converted funds to a digital asset wallet controlled in Cambodia. From there, co-conspirators in Cambodia transferred the USDT to the leaders of scam centers throughout the region. Ultimately, the government was able to identify 174 U.S. victims.