Chinese National Sentenced to 28-Month Imprisonment Over Investment Scams
Udumbara
A U.S. federal judge has sentenced a Chinese national to more than two years in prison for her role in laundering about $3.5 million from victims via investment scams as part of the so-called pig butchering fraud schemes.
According to the plea agreement, Liu admitted that she received payment for laundering the illicit funds.
Liu used a fake passport under the alias “Xia Ran” and other documents to open a bank account for a sham company called Ocean X Trading Limited Inc. on Sept. 8, 2024, according to the court document. The defendant had access to the bank account until April 9. Several victims transferred their money to this account, including a victim who lost $104,000 by investing through the fraudulent cryptocurrency application Cikror.
In October 2024, Liu transferred $83,461 out of this bank account to the account belonging to a Hong Kong-based company called Alamo Tech Limited, thus “concealing the source of the money and that the money came from fraud,” the court document said.
Liu and her co-conspirators also used fraudulent identification documents, including counterfeit passports and California driver’s licenses, to set up accounts at mail receiving facilities for the purpose of receiving bulk cash sent by victims.
For instance, on March 13, Liu used a fake Chinese passport with the name “Qiuan Li” and other documents for a company called Sunny South Trading Inc. to open an account at a Los Angeles-based shipping company called Prime Pack & Ship, according to the court document. On April 4 and April 7, a total of six packages containing bulk cash arrived at this location.
In the following days, Liu “picked up, opened, photographed the contents of the packages,” the court document said, before she sent the photographs to codefendant Lyu Shauli and other co-conspirators.
Later, Liu and Lyu “consolidated the money and provided the money to other co-conspirators,” according to the court document.
According to the Attorney’s Office, Lyu, 28, an illegal alien from China, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 4, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on June 4.
Lyu allegedly had about 46 images of bulk cash on his cellphone, many of which were sent by Liu, according to the Attorney’s Office. Based on the images, law enforcement officials estimated that there was approximately $3.5 million in laundered money.
Liu was also “involved with someone transporting more than $200,000 of bulk currency” from Dallas to Los Angeles, according to the court documents.
Law enforcement officials found $104,000 in cash at Liu’s residence, money that had not yet been sent to other co-conspirators, according to the Attorney’s Office. Additionally, authorities recovered 27 unclaimed packages from mail facilities linked to Liu and Lyu, containing approximately $285,000 in cash and $87,000 in gold bars.
The Epoch Times contacted Liu’s and Lyu’s lawyers for comment, and didn’t receive a response by publication time.
