The WSJ Just Linked Trump Crypto Venture to a Billion-Dollar Pig Butchering Scam Network

The Trump family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF), is under fire after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed its partnership with a virtual-currency company whose top executives were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for involvement in a billion-dollar pig butchering scam network. This scandal raises urgent questions about how a presidentially branded crypto project ended up entwined with a violent international fraud operation.

On October 14, 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned over 140 individuals and companies linked to the Prince Group, a transnational criminal syndicate running pig butchering scams out of at least 10 compounds in Cambodia. These scams use long-con cons and enslaved workers to defraud victims globally through fake online relationships and fraudulent crypto investments.

WLF’s USD1 stablecoin was enabled on the network of AB, a virtual-currency company whose controlling shareholder Yang Jian and general manager Yang Yanming were among those sanctioned. Shockingly, WLF announced this partnership less than a month after the Treasury sanctions became public. AB only removed the sanctioned executives after the Treasury’s action, yet WLF proceeded with the alliance regardless.

Central to WLF’s operations are Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman, identified by the WSJ as the driving forces behind the venture’s technical and operational strategy. Federal investigators from the Department of Justice and SEC are now scrutinizing Herro and Folkman’s previous projects, including Yield Game and Dough Finance, for infrastructure overlaps with the pig butchering scam network. Blockchain forensic evidence reportedly links early WLF development wallets to addresses involved in laundering money for the scam ring.

WLF’s lawyers claim the company only learned of AB’s connections to the sanctioned East Timor resort project in January 2026, two months after the partnership announcement. Regardless, the failure to conduct proper due diligence amid a sweeping Treasury sanctions action is a glaring oversight that regulatory agencies treat as a systemic problem, not a mere mistake.

World Liberty Financial launched in 2024 as a DeFi lending and governance protocol backed by the Trump family name, which instantly gave the project high-profile institutional visibility. The involvement of a crypto firm tied to violent scam operations is not just a reputational disaster. If investigators confirm links to money laundering and sanctions evasion, WLF could face serious legal consequences.

This story underscores a broader pattern of reckless political and financial entanglements within Trump-associated ventures. The Trump brand carries no immunity from scrutiny, especially when it intersects with unregulated, high-risk crypto markets and alleged criminal networks. For Americans concerned about corruption, accountability, and democratic integrity, the WLF scandal is a stark reminder that authoritarian overreach and grift often go hand in hand with dangerous financial schemes.

We will continue to follow this developing story as federal investigations unfold. Meanwhile, the Trump crypto project’s ties to a billion-dollar scam network demand urgent public attention and congressional inquiry.