{"id":183789,"date":"2025-08-29T03:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T03:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183789\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T03:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T03:37:14","slug":"youtubers-stings-help-take-down-65-million-fraud-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183789\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTubers’ stings help take down $65 million fraud ring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evidence collected during sting operations planned and carried out by YouTubers helped dismantle a massive Chinese organized crime group that allegedly scammed $65 million from more than 2,000 mostly senior\u00a0victims across the United States, federal prosecutors in San Diego announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all heroes wear capes,\u201d San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said. \u201cSome have YouTube channels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past week, federal agents in California, New York, Michigan and Texas arrested 25 of the 28 individuals indicted by a grand jury for allegedly participating in the fraud scheme. The defendants each face charges in San Diego federal court of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.<\/p>\n

Authorities said three YouTubers who ran coordinated \u201cscambait\u201d sting operations in 2020 and 2021 produced videos that directly helped investigators identify three of the 28 defendants who are now under indictment. \u201cThe videos also helped shed light on how the conspiracy operated and led to the identification of high-level members of the organization,\u201d prosecutors said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said the alleged crime ring was primarily made up of Chinese nationals, many of whom had overstayed visas or were otherwise in the U.S. illegally, who worked with scam call centers in India to target victims. On average, those victims were at least 70 years old. That included a 97-year-old San Diego woman and widow of a Holocaust survivor who prosecutors said was repeatedly defrauded until she\u2019d lost her life savings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur office will continue to be on the cutting edge of law enforcement techniques to ensure justice for vulnerable victims who have been defrauded by Chinese organized crime,\u201d Gordon said in a statement.<\/p>\n

According to court documents in the case and information provided by prosecutors, the alleged crime ring got its start as early as 2019 and continued to operate until at least April of this year. The alleged fraud followed a familiar pattern for online scams, especially those targeting older individuals.<\/p>\n

First, a member of the alleged conspiracy would cold-contact a victim through a phone call, text message, email or pop-up advertisement.<\/p>\n

Next, the victims were directed to contact Indian call centers, where alleged co-conspirators would use social engineering techniques to build trust. In some cases, the alleged scammers impersonated bank employees and claimed a victim\u2019s funds were compromised and must be kept safe by moving them to a different account. In other instances, alleged scammers impersonated government officials soliciting payments for fictitious fines.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said the most common ploy involved the alleged scammers convincing victims that they\u2019d erroneously been \u201cover-refunded\u201d thousands of dollars that they needed to pay back through wire transfers or shipments of cash or gift cards.<\/p>\n

In the end, the alleged criminals deployed various methods of separating the victims from their money, according to prosecutors. Sometimes that involved convincing victims to allow remote access to their computers, where the suspected scammers could complete online transfers of funds. More commonly, \u201cconspirators requested that victims send money via overnight or express mail couriers to co-conspirators who were in the United States,\u201d prosecutors wrote in court documents.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the YouTube \u201cscambaiters\u201d came into the picture.<\/p>\n

In 2020, content creators on the YouTube channels Scammer Payback and Trilogy Media teamed up for a sting operation. The man behind Scammer Payback, who goes by the moniker Pierogi, used voice modification technology to impersonate an elderly woman who agreed to send a package of cash to an address in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

Later, the self-proclaimed \u201cscam-fighting duo\u201d of Ashton Bingham and Art Kulik from Trilogy Media confronted the person who was awaiting the package<\/a>. Bingham and Kulik even convinced the man to hand over his driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough extensive follow-on investigation, investigators identified the individual in the video as Zhiyi Zhang,\u201d prosecutors wrote Wednesday in a motion seeking to keep Zhang, one of the indicted defendants, in custody without bail.<\/p>\n

According to the prosecutors, investigators linked Zhang to the fraud ring, and to several other defendants, through multiple sources, including his account on a site for short-term rentals. He allegedly used those rental residences to receive packages stuffed with victims\u2019 cash.<\/p>\n

\"ProsecutorsProsecutors said these images seized from Zhiyi Zhang’s phone when he was arrested showed him posing with cash stolen from victims of a massive fraud ring targeting seniors. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney’s Office via U.S. District Court filing)<\/p>\n

\u201cBy cross-referencing Zhang\u2019s short-term rental bookings with FedEx and UPS records, agents identified approximately 59 packages directly linked to Zhang,\u201d prosecutors wrote. \u201cBased on victim interviews and other financial analysis, those packages alone represent an estimated $1.8 million in victim loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhang\u2019s court-appointed attorney declined to comment Thursday, but said he would respond to prosecutors\u2019 allegations during a detention hearing next week.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said two other co-defendants<\/a> in the case \u201cwere also captured<\/a> during other YouTube videos<\/a> engaged in the conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pierogi\u2019s videos on the Scammer Payback channel also illustrated \u201chow scammers in India collaborated with\u201d the alleged crime ring operating in the U.S., prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n

One video included translations<\/a> of the foreign-language background chatter during a call in which Pierogi is impersonating an elderly woman. According to those translations, those at the call center were mocking the person they believed to be a gullible victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the victims suffered substantial financial hardship, and numerous reported losing their entire life savings as part of the fraud scheme,\u201d prosecutors wrote in the court filing seeking Zhang\u2019s pretrial detention.<\/p>\n

Each of the defendants in the case, who range in age from 23 to 48, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of the mail and wire fraud conspiracy charge.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: August 28, 2025 at 6:51 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evidence collected during sting operations planned and carried out by YouTubers helped dismantle a massive Chinese organized crime…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":183790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,356,5295,1370,728,50,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-183789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115109969642342396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}