Vietnamese man charged in $16M pig butchering crypto scam

US prosecutors have charged a Vietnamese national with money laundering over his alleged role in a "pig butchering" operation that took about $16 million in cryptocurrency from a single victim.

The defendant, 37-year-old Trung Nguyen Van, was arrested on September 24 at Los Angeles International Airport before he could board a flight to Taiwan. Two days earlier, on September 22, he had entered the United States on foot through the San Ysidro border crossing between California and Mexico.

One victim, $16 million

According to the Department of Justice, one of the victims sent roughly $16 million in cryptocurrency between June and August 2024. The victim believed the money was going into a crypto investment platform called "Triangle." Investigators say those transfers lead directly to a wallet belonging to Van.

Once the funds arrived, Van allegedly moved them to a private, unhosted wallet outside the centralized blockchain network. An unhosted wallet is one the owner controls directly, without an exchange or other custodian holding the keys.

A much larger scheme

Court documents place the charges within a broader wire fraud scheme involving more than $125 million in cryptocurrency. Between February 2018 and December 2024, Van's wallet allegedly received more than $53 million. At least $24 million of that is linked to known pig butchering schemes.

"From Feb. 9, 2018, through Dec. 17, 2024, Van's cryptocurrency wallets received approximately $53,275,939 in cryptocurrency assets from wire fraud schemes targeting United States citizens. The wallet transferred approximately $53,188,466 worth of the same cryptocurrency assets to other accounts off the centralized blockchain network," the Department of Justice said.

The victims were told to send funds to different websites, but the DOJ says their accounts followed the same pattern.

"In each of these schemes, victims were guided by an individual they met online to invest cryptocurrency in a specified 'website' with a promise of high financial returns. Ultimately, each victim was never able to withdraw funds they invested and eventually discovered they had been defrauded," the department said.

How pig butchering works

Pig butchering scams are also called cryptocurrency investment scams or romance baiting. Fraudsters approach targets on social media, dating sites and messaging apps and spend time building trust. Once the relationship is in place, they steer the victim toward a fake investment platform.

The platform often shows growing balances. In reality, nothing is invested. The scammers move the deposits into crypto accounts they control, and victims find they cannot withdraw anything.

The scale of the problem

The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report shows why US authorities keep pursuing these cases. Americans lost almost $21 billion to cyber-enabled crime last year. Investment scams made up 49% of all scam-related incidents and caused $8.6 billion in losses.

Van's case follows earlier prosecutions. In February, a Chinese national was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for his part in an international pig butchering scheme that defrauded victims of more than $73 million. That sentence came months after federal authorities set up the Scam Center Strike Force, a task force aimed at disrupting Chinese cryptocurrency scam networks.

Our Take

The arrest shows how much depends on blockchain tracing in these cases. Prosecutors say they could link the victim's transfers directly to Van's wallet and follow the funds as they moved to other accounts. That trail stretches back to 2018. Crypto payments are often described as hard to trace, but this suggests investigators can still build a detailed case long after the money has left a victim's hands.

Timing also mattered. Van was stopped at the airport two days after crossing the border, before he could leave the country. That kind of arrest depends on luck as much as planning, and many operators behind these schemes never set foot in the US. This case sits alongside other recent actions against financially motivated crime, such as the Air Force members jailed over email fraud and the Rydox marketplace operator who pleaded guilty. Across these cases, US authorities appear to be targeting the people who move and cash out stolen funds, not only the front-line scammers.

For readers, the practical lesson hasn't changed. Be suspicious of any online contact who pushes a crypto "platform" with unusually high returns, especially one you can't independently verify. It is worth watching whether the Van case leads to charges against others involved in the wider $125 million scheme, and whether the Scam Center Strike Force produces more arrests of this kind.