Key points

  • A federal complaint charges Trung Nguyen Van, 37, with two counts of money laundering tied to an alleged cryptocurrency investment fraud.
  • Prosecutors say one U.S. victim transferred about $16 million between June and August 2024 while believing the funds were invested through a platform called Triangle.
  • The complaint alleges wallets linked to Van received about $53.3 million from wire-fraud schemes targeting U.S. citizens between 2018 and 2024.

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged a 37-year-old Vietnamese national with money laundering in a case involving an alleged cryptocurrency investment fraud that cost one victim about $16 million. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri announced on September 25 that a two-count criminal complaint against Trung Nguyen Van had been unsealed following his initial appearance in federal court in Los Angeles. Van is accused, not convicted, and the allegations must be proved in court.

Alleged investment transfers through Triangle

According to the complaint, the victim transferred cryptocurrency from June through August 2024 after being led to believe the funds were being invested through a platform called Triangle. Prosecutors describe the operation as a relationship-investment fraud, commonly known as pig butchering, in which perpetrators cultivate trust before directing a target to send increasingly large sums to a purported investment service. The victim is not identified in the Justice Department's public statement.

Related reporting: DOJ charges former Robinhood engineers over alleged listing trades

Investigators traced part of the activity through a sequence of wallet transfers. The complaint alleges that on August 7, 2024, the victim sent more than $569,000 in cryptocurrency that could be followed to a wallet linked to Van. Two days later, six transactions totaling about $569,569 allegedly moved into that wallet. Prosecutors say roughly $567,999 was then transferred in four transactions to a private, unhosted wallet.

Broader wallet activity cited by prosecutors

The government says the investigation extended beyond the transfers attributed to the single $16 million loss. Between February 9, 2018, and December 17, 2024, cryptocurrency wallets allegedly connected to Van received approximately $53,275,939 from wire-fraud schemes targeting U.S. citizens. The complaint says about $53,188,466 was transferred onward from those wallets. Those figures are allegations in a criminal filing and do not establish that every transfer represented proceeds controlled by Van.

The Justice Department also said investigators identified other U.S. victims who reported losing millions of dollars to related schemes. Independent reports from The Block and CryptoTimes corroborated the filing, the $16 million loss alleged for the principal victim and the government's description of the Triangle platform. Neither report supplied a judicial finding beyond the complaint, and the case remains at an early procedural stage.

Case remains an allegation

A criminal complaint is an accusation, not evidence of guilt. The Justice Department emphasized that Van is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The public announcement did not state that the approximately $16 million had been recovered, nor did it identify a trial date or disclose a plea. It also did not allege that cryptocurrency networks themselves were compromised; the case concerns the alleged use of digital assets and wallets to receive and move funds.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Q. McCarther and James Kirkpatrick are prosecuting it for the Western District of Missouri. The filing adds to a growing body of U.S. cases focused on tracing digital-asset flows connected to relationship-investment fraud. For exchanges and wallet operators, the allegations illustrate how transaction records can become central evidence, while the outcome will depend on the government's ability to prove the charged conduct in court.

Sources

AI-generated editorial image; not a photograph of the reported event. Prepared with AI assistance and source verification.