Trump's Crypto Grift Linked to Sanctioned Fraud Network

The Trump family's cryptocurrency venture is once again raising red flags about conflicts of interest, inadequate vetting, and potential exposure to sanctioned criminal networks.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), launched in September 2024 as Donald Trump returned to the political spotlight, announced a partnership in November with AB DAO, an Asia-based blockchain project. According to an investigation by The Times published Monday, AB DAO's "flagship project" had recently involved individuals who were sanctioned just weeks earlier by both the United States and United Kingdom for alleged ties to a major fraud operation.

The sanctioned individuals were connected to Cambodia's Prince Group, which U.S. authorities have identified as a transnational criminal network. AB DAO had promoted a resort project linked to the group's founder, Chen Zhi, and his associates—all of whom were hit with coordinated sanctions in the fall for their alleged involvement in large-scale fraud schemes.

World Liberty Financial told The Times it has "no association or relationship with the sanctioned individuals" and insisted it conducted proper due diligence before entering the partnership. But the investigation found the company was completely unaware that AB DAO had been promoting the Prince Group-linked resort until just weeks before the deal was announced. The sanctioned figures were quietly removed from AB DAO's materials following the sanctions.

There is no evidence that WLFI had direct contact with the Prince Group itself. But the episode raises serious questions about how thoroughly the Trump-linked venture vets its business partners—and whether it has the governance infrastructure to avoid entanglements with bad actors in the notoriously murky world of cryptocurrency.

This is not the first time World Liberty Financial's business relationships have drawn scrutiny. In January, The Wall Street Journal revealed that a company backed by United Arab Emirates national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan had quietly acquired a 49 percent stake in WLFI for $500 million. The deal was finalized shortly before Trump returned to office in January 2025.

Legal experts quoted by the Journal called the arrangement "unprecedented in American politics" and raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest. The White House has denied any impropriety, but the optics are damning: a sitting president's family business taking half a billion dollars from a foreign government official while Trump wields the powers of the presidency.

World Liberty Financial markets itself as a decentralized finance platform, but its structure and partnerships suggest it functions more like a vehicle for selling access and influence. The company has raised money by selling governance tokens to investors, a model that critics say allows the Trump family to monetize the presidency without traditional disclosure or ethics requirements.

The cryptocurrency industry has long been a magnet for fraud, money laundering, and sanctions evasion. A recent spike in exploits cost investors $2.47 billion in 2025 alone, according to industry data. Regulatory scrutiny is intensifying, and the Trump family's decision to dive headfirst into this space—while Trump holds executive power—looks less like entrepreneurship and more like a pay-to-play scheme.

CoinDesk reached out to World Liberty Financial for comment but received no response at the time of publication.

The pattern is clear: Trump-linked ventures repeatedly find themselves entangled with questionable partners, foreign governments, and sanctioned networks. Whether through ignorance or indifference, the due diligence failures keep piling up. And every time, the Trump family insists there is nothing to see here.

The American public deserves to know who is buying stakes in the president's family business, what they are getting in return, and whether foreign actors are using cryptocurrency ventures as a backdoor to influence U.S. policy. So far, those answers have not been forthcoming.