The timing begs the question of whether there was a connection between the two events.
But the “tea money” theory adds a potential missing piece: what if a major, steady bid—capital moving through offshore and underground channels—was abruptly turned off in the days and weeks before the spark?
Let’s start with a brief timeline of events showing some interesting coincidences:
December 28, 2020: The LuBian mining pool in China is hacked for 127k BTC – the biggest hack ever. July 2024: Those coins get moved from the hacker’s wallet to another address that is later labeled by Arkham as belonging to the US Government. Oct 8 2025: The Eastern District of New York announces an indictment against Cambodian national Chen Zhi – alleged controller of LuBian – for allegedly laundering billions in BTC and stablecoins from scams and funneling it through businesses in NY, thus justifying US intervention. A massive wave of takedowns, raids, and seizures unfold in several “scam compounds” all over SEA. Oct 10 2025: Bitcoin tops out and almost every altcoin on every exchange scam wicks to zero. Silver immediately embarks on a 153% rally while gold also makes new all-time highs. Oct 14 2025: US announces it seized 127k BTC (the exact amount hacked from Lubian) from Chen Zhi, but doesn’t reveal who the original “hacker” was. November 2025: China accuses the US of stealing the 127k BTC The LuBian mining poolWas he interested in the philosophy of peer-to-peer digital cash and non-inflationary money – or was mining complementary to a multi-billion dollar laundering empire?
In the “Golden Fortune” scam compound outside a village south of Phnom Penh, locals told journalists that they saw workers “beaten until they [were] barely alive” before being forcefully returned after escaping. These scam compounds are well known to exist all over SEA and India in similar fashions: workers are enticed by supposedly good salaries and benefits, only to be essentially imprisoned like animals working the phone lines and manning the scams.
According to the indictment:
“In the summer of 2022, Co-Conspirator-2 boasted that, in 2018, Prince Group was earning over $30 million a day from fraudulent sha zhu pan schemes and related illicit activities.”
Given the scope of Zhi’s alleged operations, it seems plausible that they were being used not just for his own personal gain, but as a proxy for larger, dark money operations to launder their funds or get capital out of Asia under the radar.
Chen Zhi was born into an ordinary family in 1987 in Xiao’ao Town, Lianjiang County, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. He dropped out of school before finishing junior high, and went to Shanghai, where he set up a server for The Legend of Mir 2, an online role-playing game created by Korean-based WeMade Entertainment. That is supposedly how he made his first fortune, which he then decided to convert into real estate in Cambodia. He launched Prince Group when he was just 27, which quickly became one of the biggest business groups in Cambodia, operating banking, finance, and tourism businesses.
Chen and his company were known for philanthropy, contributing millions to fund scholarships, purchasing vaccines, and actively participating in charity. He served as an advisor to the Ministry of Interior until 2017, and later became the founding chairman of Cambodia Airways.
However, no one really knows how Chen could have possibly gotten this rich and powerful, or why he decided to suddenly relocate to Cambodia.
The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau set up a special task force dedicated to investigating Prince Group in 2020, and separate Chinese police investigations unfolded between 2020 and 2022, but Chen managed to avoid the charges.
Chen’s mysterious success story ends in October of 2025 when the US indicts him and his colleagues, and an international campaign of anti-scam enforcement actions hits SEA.
The Raids and Seizures Begin The EDNY indictment in October foreshadowed many raids and enforcement actions that rained down on the scam centers of Cambodia and SEA. Cambodian authorities said that nearly 200 scam centres were closed, 173 senior crime figures were arrested, and 11,000 workers were deported. Chen Zhi’s operations were shut down, and his global assets were also seized, including 19 different properties in London. On October 20, Myanmar authorities announced the capture of a notorious scam compound on the border with Thailand, believed to be linked to Triad kingpin Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth, who we later find out is linked to Chen. Singapore launched its own investigation on Oct. 30 after seizing over $114 million of Zhi’s assets, including cash, a yacht, and shelves of liquor. In early November, Taiwanese prosecutors seized $150 million in assets from Zhi; 26 luxury cars, including a Bugatti, a Porsche, and a Ferrari, plus 11 different apartments in an upscale Taipei neighborhood. On the same day, Hong Kong police also confiscated $353 million in assets, mostly cash and stocks linked to Zhi. Later on, Thai authorities seized $420 million in assets, including blocks of land, condos, vehicles, yachts, and bank deposits, announcing they found evidence “indicating a network involving online fraud, labour trafficking, and money laundering via digital currencies, linked to Chen Zhi.” Ly Kuong (also referred to as Kuong Li), a Cambodian scam boss known for using digital assets to launder funds was also arrested on January 16. In the summer leading up to all of this, an INTERPOL-coordinated operation across 40 countries and territories resulted in the recovery of $439 million: $342 million, along with $97 million in physical cash and crypto. According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime, the arrests and seizures were “signalling a potential broader campaign against influential individuals involved in scam activity.”
As part of the DOJ’s charges against Zhi, the US government also targeted Prince Group TCO members and associates, including Guy Chhay, Lei Bo, Ing Dara, Zhu Zhongbiao a.k.a. Jack Zhu, Sin Huat Alan Yeo a.k.a. Alan Yeo, Zhou Yun a.k.a. Sandy Zhou, Chen Xiuling a.k.a. Karen Chen, Wei Qianjiang, and Thet Li.
Here’s What This Has to Do With Crypto And October 10Let’s lay out how this process might have functioned:
Obtain digital assets: Various scams and thefts receive proceeds in fiat currency, which is then sent to offshore or non-KYC exchanges and converted into crypto. “Black” crypto from hacks (via Lazarus Group, for example) is sold at a discount to Chaoshan banks. The crypto is washed in “mule fleets” in China and Southeast Asia. Sell clean crypto to Chinese citizens desperate to move assets abroad. Purchase assets in other countries, park crypto (especially stablecoins) in yield-generating places.The cartels want to get rid of dollars, and the Chinese need dollars.
That’s where “brokers” run by Triads step in.
The Triads already have an extensive relationship with the cartels and networks in Mexico because they provide the precursor chemicals for methamphetamine and opioids that later get processed and sold to street dealers in North American cities.
Triads use their brokers to buy the dollars from the cartels, while simultaneously selling dollars to Chinese elite, all obfuscated within local legal entities, meaning money never officially crosses borders and triggering red flags.
If that infrastructure tightened in early October, it would help explain two things that otherwise look coincidental: a sudden thinning of order books across digital assets, and a near-immediate rotation into traditional stores of value—most visibly, the sharp bid in precious metals.
Cowen also posited that “the crash did not create the weakness,” but “revealed what had been there all along.”
However, there is quite clearly an immeasurably large underground economy that depends on digital assets for its payment rails, which was largely shut off by authorities in October of 2025.
Then, the spark happens:
Trump drops the 100% tariff bomb, creating an immediate macro shock.
