Geoffrey K. Auyeung, a 47-year-old from Newcastle, Washington, will spend the next five years in federal prison for laundering proceeds from a nearly $100 million fraud scheme through Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering on February 20, 2026.

The sentence comes with a financial reckoning to match: $24.7 million in restitution payments and forfeiture of $10.1 million in assets, including an Audi SQ8.

The anatomy of a $100M laundering operation

Auyeung’s scheme ran from August 2022 to August 2024, a two-year window during which he built an elaborate financial plumbing system designed to obscure the origins of stolen funds.

He operated through at least nine shell companies and maintained no fewer than 81 bank accounts.

The underlying fraud involved fake oil and gas investments promoted by overseas fraudsters. Victims, primarily located in the US, were lured into pouring money into what they believed were legitimate energy sector opportunities. Auyeung’s role was taking those funds and moving them through a maze of traditional and digital financial channels.

The crypto component was central to the operation. Funds moved through Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC), with significant transfers routed through Binance.

The takedown and asset seizures

Federal authorities arrested Auyeung on August 12, 2024, and secured an indictment later that month.

Authorities have already seized $2.3 million from bank accounts tied to the scheme and are pursuing an additional $7.1 million in digital assets, including holdings in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

What this means for investors

Auyeung’s use of centralized platforms like Binance, which maintain KYC records, likely gave investigators critical entry points for tracing the flow of funds.

The involvement of stablecoins like USDT and USDC is particularly notable. Stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle have the ability to freeze assets at the smart contract level when presented with law enforcement requests.

Binance has been under heightened regulatory scrutiny globally and agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with US authorities in 2023 over separate compliance failures.

The five-year sentence amounts to roughly one year of prison time for every $20 million laundered.