5 plead guilty to laundering nearly $37 million stolen through Cambodian cyber scam centers

The Justice Department said five men have pleaded guilty to laundering $36.9 million that was obtained from victims of investment scams perpetrated through centers in Cambodia. 

Court documents said the five men were part of an international crime syndicate that convinced U.S. citizens to invest in fake cryptocurrency schemes. The five then transferred the funds to accounts they controlled and laundered the money through shell companies, international bank accounts and crypto wallets. 

Two of the men — Joseph Wong, 33, of Alhambra, California and Yicheng Zhang, 39, of China, — pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and each faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Zhang has been in custody since May 2024.  

The three others — Jose Somarriba, 55, of Los Angeles, Shengsheng He, 39, of La Puente, California and Jingliang Su, 44, of China and Turkey — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money services business. 

He, Somarriba, and Su are facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Su has been in custody since November 2024. He signed his plea agreement on March 3 and Somarriba signed his on March 14. 

A Justice Department official said the three of the five who are U.S. citizens — Wong, Somarriba and He — are currently free on bond. 

The scheme is based in Cambodia, where people residing in scam centers contact U.S. victims through phone calls, texts, dating apps and other avenues to promote fake cryptocurrency investments. 

Like most of these schemes, victims were sent fake screenshots depicting their investment increasing when the money was simply being stolen and laundered. 

U.S. prosecutors found about $36.9 million in stolen funds transferred from U.S. bank accounts to one account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas which was controlled by a shell company named Axis Digital. 

Somarriba, He, and Su then converted the funds to the U.S-dollar backed stablecoin USDT and transferred it to a wallet controlled by people in Cambodia. Co-conspirators in Cambodia transferred it to the leaders of the scam centers, which are located in the coastal city of Sihanoukville — a well-known haven for Chinese criminal activity. 

Court documents said He traveled back and forth between the U.S. and Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, coordinating the transfer of stolen funds.

Wong controlled a network of money launderers in Los Angeles who opened U.S. bank accounts and registered shell companies that were used to take stolen victim funds and send them to international bank accounts. Zhang also ran two U.S. bank accounts used as part of the scheme. 

The five who pleaded guilty are part of a larger effort by the Justice Department to shut down the schemes — known colloquially as “pig butchering.”

So far, eight people have pleaded guilty to participating in this specific pig butchering operation including Daren Li who has been in U.S. custody since April 2024 and Lu Zhang, who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in November. 

Multiple U.S agencies are involved in the investigation alongside police in the Dominican Republic. 

The announcement comes one month after U.S. officials designated Cambodia-based conglomerate Huione Group as an “institution of primary money laundering concern” and has proposed severing its access to the U.S. financial system. The platform has been used to transfer billions earned through cyber scams and senior officials have deep ties to the Cambodian government. 

The platform is a key player in the pig-butchering economy — serving as a “guarantor or escrow provider for all transactions.” According to the United Nations, at least 100,000 people in Cambodia have been tricked into participating in cyber scams.