A federal judge in California sentenced in absentia a dual citizen from China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for its role in a $73 million international crypto scam.
Daren Li, who is on the run after removing an electronic ankle monitoring device in December, was also handed three years of supervised release for his role in an international cryptocurrency investment conspiracy run from fraud centers in Cambodia, according to a court filing Monday.
Cambodia has become a hub for “pig butchering” crypto scams that generate over $30 million daily via forced labor, according to a TRM Labs report. A separate TRM report revealed how over $96 billion in crypto has flowed to Cambodia-linked companies since 2021, largely used for money laundering and fraud.
“As part of an international cryptocurrency investment scam, Daren Li and his co-conspirators laundered over $73 million dollars stolen from American victims,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in the statement.
Duva said the court’s criminal division is working with global law enforcement officials to locate, detain and return Li to the United States to serve his full sentence.
Li pleaded guilty on November 12, 2024 in the Central District of California to conspiring with others to launder funds obtained from victims through crypto fraud and related fraud. As part of his plea agreement, Li said he and his associates would contact the victims directly through unsolicited social media interactions, phone calls and messages, and online dating services. Their tactics involved gaining the victims’ trust by establishing professional or romantic relationships with them and then luring them into using spoof platforms to appear to be investing in crypto.
In other cases, the group posed as tech support workers and got victims to send money via wire transfer or cryptocurrency trading platforms to supposedly fix a non-existent virus or other bogus computer-related problem.
Social engineering scams, such as fake investment offers and impersonation tactics, were the leading threat to crypto users, accounting for billions of dollars in losses and representing nearly 41% of all crypto security incidents in 2025.
