Fugitive foreigner sentenced in the U.S. to 20 years for $73 million crypto scam

A federal judge in California sentenced in absentia a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for his role in a $73 million international crypto scam.

Daren Li, who is a fugitive after removing an ankle electronic monitoring device in December, was also handed three years of supervised release for his role in an international cryptocurrency investment conspiracy carried out from scam centers in Cambodia, according to a court statement on Monday.

Cambodia has become a hub for "pig butchering" crypto scams, generating over $30 million daily via forced labor compounds, 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, used heavily 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 find, detain and return Li to the U.S. to serve his entire sentence.

Li pleaded guilty on Nov. 12, 2024, in the Central District of California to conspiring with others to launder funds obtained from victims through crypto scams and related fraud. As part of his plea agreement, Li said he and his cronies would contact victims directly through unsolicited social-media interactions, telephone calls and messages and online dating services. Their tactics entailed gaining victims' trust by establishing professional or romantic relationships with them, then luring them into using spoof platforms to appear to invest in crypto.

In other instances, the group posed as tech-support staff and induced victims to send funds via wire transfer or cryptocurrency trading platforms to purportedly remediate a non-existent virus or other false computer-related problem.

Social engineering scams, such as fake investment offers and impersonation tactics, were the leading threat to crypto users, accounting for losses in the billions of dollars and representing nearly 41% of all crypto security incidents in 2025.