US Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) on Tuesday praised the Trump administration’s coordinated crackdown on the Prince Group, a Cambodia-based conglomerate that US authorities allege ran forced-labor “pig-butchering” cyber-fraud compounds and laundered criminal proceeds through bitcoin at unprecedented scale.
The underlying case is sprawling. Prosecutors say Chen directed Prince Group’s network of Cambodian compounds where trafficked workers—detained and abused—were forced to run online investment and romance-bait frauds, siphoning billions from US and global victims. The EDNY filing describes the bitcoin cache as proceeds and instrumentalities of the schemes that Chen previously controlled via unhosted wallets; it calls the action “the largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice.”
The news ricocheted through crypto-forensics circles. Arkham, which tracks government-linked wallets, stated: “The US Government has submitted today a filing for the forfeiture of 127,271 $BTC… These Bitcoins are now confirmed to be under US Government control. It’s the largest forfeiture case of all time.” While on-chain analytics firms do not determine legal ownership, their confirmation that the assets moved to US-controlled addresses aligns with the Justice Department’s representations to the court and Treasury’s sanctions actions.
Under EO 14233, government BTC placed into the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve “shall not be sold” except when the Treasury exercises its lawful stewardship authority, when a court orders disposal, or when the Attorney General or another agency head determines the assets (or proceeds) should be returned to identifiable victims, used for law-enforcement operations, equitably shared with state and local partners, or released to satisfy statutory requirements
Thus, the legal sequencing matters. Tuesday’s 127,271 BTC is in government custody pending the outcome of the civil forfeiture case. Only after final forfeiture—through settlement or judgment—can the assets be disposed of or allocated under the EO’s hierarchy, which puts victim restitution first.
Politically, Lummis is pushing for Congress to lock in the policy architecture she outlined on X: market-structure legislation that empowers decisive action against illicit finance without kneecapping innovation, and statutes that “codify how seized bitcoin is stored, returned to victims, and safeguarded for future generations.” That second plank is the legislative counterpart to EO 14233’s administrative framework.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $112,482.
