Jingliang Su, a Chinese national, was sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to operate an illegal money transmitting business. He admitted laundering about $36.9 million taken from victims of crypto investment scams.
A court ordered him to pay more than $26.8 million in restitution for the fraud. The scheme allegedly cheated 174 Americans and caused roughly $37 million in losses, prosecutors said.
The ring persuaded victims to send funds to accounts controlled by Su and his co-conspirators. They laundered money through shell companies, foreign bank accounts, and converted funds to Tether’s stablecoin, USDT.
Eight co-conspirators have pleaded guilty so far; one, Shengsheng He, received a 51-month prison term. According to a statement, Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said “This defendant and his co-conspirators scammed 174 Americans out of their hard-earned money.”
Chainalysis estimates crypto-scam losses topped $17 billion last year and linked the rise partly to AI-enabled impersonation scams (Ed. note: the firm reported a 1,400% increase in impersonation-related scams).
