Federal prosecutors in the Western District of Missouri have charged 37-year-old Vietnamese national Trung Nguyen Van with two counts of money laundering in connection with an alleged crypto pig butchering and romance scam that defrauded a Missouri victim of approximately $16 million.
The criminal complaint, unsealed Friday, September 25, 2026 after Van’s initial appearance in federal court in Los Angeles, says the victim transferred nearly $16 million in digital assets between June and August 2024 while believing they were trading on a legitimate investment platform called Triangle.
According to the FBI affidavit, a digital wallet linked to Van received more than $569,000 from the victim on August 7, 2024. Two days later, on August 9, the same wallet logged six additional transfers totaling $569,569. Prosecutors allege Van then moved approximately $567,999 through four separate outbound transactions to unhosted private addresses.
Investigators say the case extends far beyond a single victim. Between February 2018 and December 2024, addresses associated with Van collected a consolidated $53.28 million tied to wire fraud schemes across U.S. territory, with about $53.19 million rerouted toward accounts and wallets outside centralized platforms.
The scheme followed a documented social engineering pattern: operators initiated online contact, cultivated long-term relationships, directed victims to fraudulent interfaces showing fictitious gains, and then blocked withdrawals once larger deposits were made. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has warned that such syndicates are often coordinated by transnational criminal networks based in Southeast Asia.
Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price described this class of fraudulent operation as a complex modality generating cumulative multi-million-dollar losses worldwide. The charges are accusations, and Van maintains the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty. Further proceedings are scheduled in the Western District of Missouri.
