Source: Office of United States Attorneys
LOS ANGELES – A Chinese national was sentenced today to 28 months in federal prison for laundering approximately $3.5 million in money stolen from victims of investment scams as part of so-called “pig butchering” schemes, including opening bank accounts used to launder the money and picking up packages of bulk cash sent by fraud victims.
Li Liu, 27, a.k.a. “Qiunan Li” and “Xiaoying Zhao,” of the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin.
She pleaded guilty on June 4 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
“Pig butchering” fraud schemes (a term derived from a foreign-language phrase used to describe these crimes) consist of scammers encountering victims on dating services or social media, or via unsolicited messages or calls, often masquerading as a wrong number. Scammers initiate relationships with victims and slowly gain their trust, eventually introducing the idea of making a business investment.
Victims are then directed to other members of the scheme operating fraudulent investment platforms and applications, where victims are persuaded to transfer money for the purpose of financial investments. Once funds are sent to scammer-controlled accounts, the purported investment platform often falsely shows significant gains on the purported investment, and the victims are thus induced to send more money for additional investments.
Ultimately, the victims are unable recover their money, often resulting in significant losses for the victims.
In September 2024, Liu – using a fake passport under the alias “Xia Ran” and other documents – opened a bank account for a sham company named Ocean X Trading Ltd Inc. and had access to the account until April 2025. Multiple investment scam victims wired their money to this account. During October 2024 alone, Liu transferred $83,461 out of this bank account to a Hong Kong-based company called Alamo Tech Ltd.
As part of the conspiracy, Liu and her co-conspirators also used fake IDs – including passports and California driver’s licenses – to open accounts at mail receiving facilities and pick up package of bulk currency sent by wire fraud victims.
For example, in March 2025, Liu – using a fake passport with the name “Qiunan Li” along with other documents for a business called Sunny South Trading Inc. – opened an account at a shipping company located in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. During two days in April 2025, six packages containing bulk cash – were received at this location. Liu picked up, opened, and photographed the packages’ content then consolidated the money and sent it to co-defendant Shaui Lyu, 28, of Koreatown, and other co-conspirators.
Lyu possessed on his cellphone approximately 46 images of bulk currency, many of which Liu sent to him. Law enforcement estimated that the bulk currency in the images totaled approximately $3.5 million of laundered money.
Finally, the conspiracy used couriers to deliver bulk cash from fraud victims. In March 2025, Liu was involved with someone transporting from Dallas to Los Angeles more than $200,000 in bulk currency of wire fraud victims. The co-conspirators also used an image of a serialized U.S. dollar bill for each courier pick up of currency, with the courier and the victim each showing the same serialized dollar bill to confirm the courier’s identity at pick up. In April 2025, Lyu on his cellphone, possessed more than 100 images of serialized dollar bills, each representing a different pick up of bulk cash.
Liu admitted in her plea agreement that she received payment for laundering the fraudulently obtained money. Law enforcement searching Liu’s residence found $104,000 in cash from fraud victims that had not yet been sent to other co-conspirators. Law enforcement also recovered 27 packages that Liu and Lyu had not picked up from mail receiving facilities, which were found to contain about $285,000 in cash and $87,000 in gold bars.
Lyu – who is an illegal alien from China – also pleaded guilty on June 4 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and will face up to 20 years in federal prison at his September 4 sentencing hearing.
Homeland Security Investigations investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Erik M. Silber, Chief of the Post-Conviction and Special Litigation Section, prosecuted this case.