On October 14, 2025, the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York announced the indictment of a corporate executive of a Cambodian-based company for wire fraud and money laundering arising out of a near decade-long “pig butchering” cybercrime scheme, alongside a corresponding civil forfeiture action seeking approximately 12,271 bitcoin—worth approximately $15 billion—that are alleged to be proceeds and instrumentalities of the scheme. This is the largest forfeiture action in the Department of Justice’s history, and, together with the charges against the corporate executive, signals that the Department will continue to pursue corporate criminal enforcement, particularly where it involves cybercrime and cryptocurrency.
According to the government’s indictment and forfeiture complaint, since approximately 2015, the Cambodian-based company, known as the Prince Holding Group (“Prince Group”), under the direction of its Chairman, Chen Zhi (“Zhi”), was operating as one of the largest transnational criminal organizations in Asia. Although Prince Group claimed to be involved in real estate development and other legitimate businesses, the government alleges that, in reality, Prince Group used a sophisticated forced-labor scheme employing thousands of people to commit large-scale cryptocurrency fraud that enabled Zhi and his associates to steal and launder billions in fraudulent proceeds.