U.S. authorities charged 37-year-old Vietnamese citizen Trung Nguyen Van with money laundering over his alleged role in a “pig butchering” cryptocurrency fraud scheme, after digital assets worth approximately $16 million from a single victim were transferred to his wallet.
Van entered the United States through the pedestrian crossing at San Ysidro, California, from Mexico on September 22, 2026, and was arrested on September 24 before boarding a flight bound for Taiwan from Los Angeles International Airport.
The Flow of Funds in the Case
Between June and August 2024, the victim transferred approximately $16 million in cryptocurrency to addresses directly traceable to Van’s wallet, after believing she was investing through a platform called “Triangle.” According to court documents, after being collected, the funds were moved to a private, non-custodial wallet outside the central blockchain network used by centralized trading services.
The U.S. Department of Justice says the case is part of a broader cyberfraud scheme whose cryptocurrency assets exceeded $125 million. Van’s wallet received approximately $53,275,939 in assets linked to fraud schemes targeting U.S. citizens between February 9, 2018, and December 17, 2024, while approximately $53,188,466 of the same assets was transferred to other accounts outside the central network. The documents indicate that at least $24 million of those assets was linked to known “pig butchering” schemes.
How Did the Scheme Work?
In this type of fraud, criminals contact their targets through social networks, dating websites, or messaging applications, then build a relationship of trust before directing the victim to a fake investment website promising high returns. After the money is transferred, the victim is unable to withdraw the investment and later discovers that she has been defrauded.
The case documents say that victims were urged to send cryptocurrency to various sites, but their accounts shared the same outcome: investments that could not be withdrawn and funds transferred to entities controlled by the criminals.
Why Does This News Matter?
The case shows that blockchain tracing can reveal the paths of funds even when private, non-custodial wallets are used to move assets away from centralized platforms. But it also shows that tracing does not automatically mean recovering the money; the case remains an accusation, and guilt can be established only by a court ruling.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation places the size of the case in a broader context, reporting in its 2025 Internet Crime Report that Americans lost nearly $21 billion to internet-enabled crimes, and that investment fraud accounted for 49% of reported fraud incidents and caused losses of $8.6 billion.
The prosecution follows a February judgment sentencing a Chinese citizen in absentia to 20 years in prison for his role in a similar international scheme, which authorities said defrauded victims of more than $73 million, and follows the creation by U.S. federal authorities of a task force to combat cryptocurrency fraud networks linked to Chinese scam centers.