U.S. Files Record Forfeiture Action Against 127,271 Bitcoin
The U.S. Justice Department unsealed charges against Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi and filed a civil forfeiture complaint against approximately 127,271 BTC, then worth about $15 billion and already in U.S. custody. DOJ described it as the largest forfeiture action in department history.
On October 14, 2025, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment charging Prince Holding Group founder and chairman Chen Zhi with wire-fraud conspiracy and money-laundering conspiracy. In a parallel civil action, the U.S. government sought forfeiture of approximately 127,271 bitcoin, then valued at roughly $15 billion. The Justice Department said the bitcoin was already in U.S. custody and described the case as the largest forfeiture action in department history.
According to the indictment and forfeiture complaint, prosecutors alleged that Prince Group operated forced-labor compounds in Cambodia where trafficked workers were compelled to participate in large-scale cryptocurrency investment fraud, often described as “pig butchering.” Authorities alleged that proceeds from those schemes were laundered through cryptocurrency infrastructure and that the forfeited bitcoin represented proceeds or instrumentalities of the offenses. Chen was charged but remained at large at the time; the allegations had not yet been proven at trial.
The scale of the bitcoin holding made the case historically unusual even by the standards of major cybercrime seizures. A balance of more than 127,000 BTC placed the U.S. government in custody of an amount comparable to the treasuries of some of the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holders. It also highlighted the dual role of Bitcoin in law-enforcement history: the same self-custodied asset used to move and preserve illicit proceeds can become recoverable property when investigators obtain access to the relevant keys.
The October event should be distinguished from later procedural stages. The filing was a civil forfeiture action and criminal indictment, not a final judicial forfeiture judgment, and Chen's later transfer to China in January 2026 was a separate development. The October action remains significant because of its unprecedented size and because it joined cybercrime, forced labor, cryptocurrency tracing, sanctions, and sovereign custody of Bitcoin in a single enforcement episode.