By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-06 23:06:55 | Updated at 2026-10-06 23:48:08
51 minutes ago
A Chinese national has pleaded guilty to helping a scam operation collect and launder more than half a million dollars taken from victims in the United States, prosecutors said on Monday.
Liu Binghui, 33, confessed to one count of money laundering conspiracy, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of California.
Liu is a Chinese citizen who had applied for asylum, prosecutors said.
He was indicted in April 2025 for helping launder money for scammers pretending to be government officials.
The Justice Department’s top fraud prosecutor described the scheme as “evil.”
Imposters pretended to be from federal law enforcement agencies and falsely told their targets that criminal charges had been filed against them and that their bank accounts would be frozen, according to Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald.
The purported government employee then instructed victims to withdraw their savings in cash and hand it over for “safekeeping,” McDonald said on X.
“Victims were told that a federal official would arrive to collect the cash,” he said. “The scammers used fake names, code words, and directed the victims to take pictures of themselves and the cash packaged for pickup.”
From March to April 2025, Liu allegedly helped scammers collect about $597,100 from 24 victims across California and Nevada.
Liu is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 4, 2027.
He faces a maximum of 20 years behind bars and a $500,000 fine, or twice the value of property involved in the case.
Liu’s lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Among the victims identified in Liu’s case was a California woman in her 70s.
Beginning in 2024, according to the complaint, a scammer posing as a U.S. Marshal told her that there was a federal arrest warrant against her.
The scammer warned that her bank account could be frozen because her name and Social Security number were being used by “a drug cartel to commit money laundering, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other crimes,” prosecutors said.
The fraudster claimed she could “protect” herself by handing her money to the Federal Reserve, according to the court document.
“The victim was coached to lie to employees of financial institutions in order to get her funds,” the complaint reads.
From February 2024 through December 2024, the woman liquidated her savings and investments and took out more than $200,000 in home mortgages, according to the complaint.
Liu and others participating in the scheme then posed as federal agents and collected the cash, often at the woman’s residence, prosecutors said.
In total, the victim lost more than $780,000 to the scam, according to the complaint.
In April 2025, Liu was sent to the victim’s house to pick up $20,000; however the FBI had set up a sting operation and the money was fake. Liu was arrested shortly after he had the fake cash in hand.
Between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI received nearly 61,000 complaints related to government impersonation scams, according to a recent agency update.
In most reported cases, victims were told that they were involved in a crime and threatened with arrest and prosecution, the FBI said.
They were then told to pay money, either to get the charges removed or to assist investigators in getting “real” criminals, it said.
In 2025 alone, government impersonation scams cost consumers more than $920 million—up from $789 million in 2024—according to the Federal Trade Commission’s latest data.
The resulting losses topped $1.6 billion.
Frank Fang contributed to this report.
