Who stole 127,000 Bitcoins? Tracing the truth from the "Pig-butchering scams empire" to the Luban Mining Farm.

The U.S. Department of Justice seized 127,000 Bitcoins, directly pointing to Chen Zhi, the chairman of the Cambodian Prince Group, suspected of operating a Pig-butchering scams and money laundering network, implicating the Chinese mining company LuBian. The incident unveils the absurd intertwining of political and business collusion, geopolitical finance, and Bitcoin nationalization. This article is sourced from a publication by Galaxy Research, translated and organized by BlockTempo. (Background: Seizing 127,000 Bitcoins! The U.S. cracks down on the Southeast Asian 'Pig-butchering Empire' Prince Group, simultaneously sanctioning the Huiwang Group) (Background Supplement: The New York Times reveals Cambodia's money laundering empire 'Huiwang Group', the world's largest black gold flow line) The U.S. Department of Justice has completed the largest asset seizure in history, seizing 127,271 Bitcoins worth nearly $15 billion. This indictment reads like a mix of a Netflix 'Narcos' script and a Chainalysis case study. The core figure in the case is Chen Zhi, the chairman of the Cambodian Prince Holding Group. Prosecutors accuse him of operating a vertically integrated criminal empire spanning online gambling, forced labor camps, and Pig-butchering investment scams. The prosecution states that Chen Zhi and his partners laundered billions of dollars through a series of shell companies, including a large crypto mining business. Two names stand out: Warp Data, based in Laos and with a subsidiary in Texas, and the Chinese mining company 'LuBian', which has appeared in crypto forensics reports for years. LuBian Incident: A 'Milk Sad' Randomness Disaster LuBian is not just any Chinese mining company. In 2020, it encountered one of the largest private key leak incidents in history. Due to severe randomness flaws in its wallet generation software (codenamed 'Milk Sad'), hackers were able to steal an estimated 127,000 Bitcoins. Although LuBian has never publicly admitted to being hacked, it allegedly spent about 1.4 Bitcoins to send OP_RETURN messages to the hacker's wallet, pleading for the return of its assets. The 'Bizarre Correspondence' in the Indictment Strangely, the U.S. Department of Justice listed a series of wallet addresses in the indictment, stating that Chen Zhi 'personally kept records of these wallet addresses and private key mnemonic phrases.' These addresses completely match the list of LuBian's weak random wallets identified by the security team Distrust in 2020. However, these wallets had almost no Bitcoins left when they were seized. The 127,271 seized BTC primarily came from the 'LuBian hacker's' wallets. Our Observation: LuBian and Prince Group are Essentially Two Sides of the Same Coin The timing coincidences, matching fund scales, and on-chain data support the theory that the Prince Group and LuBian may actually be two branches of the same organization. Those operating the Pig-butchering scams and offshore casinos likely also controlled that 'hacked' mining farm. Whether this is internal collusion, a fabricated hacking event to cover up criminal funds and tax losses, or the Prince Group forcing LuBian to hand over funds remains to be seen. Regardless of the truth, the Department of Justice has obtained the private keys - those that the FBI claims to have found in Chen Zhi's possession. This suggests the event is more like 'the FBI entering your cloud drive' rather than 'the NSA cracking Bitcoin.' Currently, Chen Zhi is on the run, and his newly sanctioned wallet by OFAC contains about $1.8 billion worth of Bitcoin; additionally, there is about $1.8 billion worth of Bitcoin in wallets marked by LuBian, which were immediately transferred after the indictment was made public. Ownership Chaos and Geopolitical Risk This asset ownership dispute is complex. LuBian appears to be operated by the Prince Group but is not listed on the OFAC sanctions list, and the indictment does not explicitly state that LuBian belongs to the Prince Group. Theoretically, LuBian could claim: 'That is our wallet, we were hacked, and we should be returned.' But in reality, LuBian is a Chinese registered mining company accused of being linked to a Cambodian criminal group laundering money, while U.S.-China trade relations are currently frozen. The chance that a U.S. court orders $15 billion in Bitcoins to be returned to a Chinese company is nearly zero. The U.S. Treasury Narrative and 'Bitcoin Reserves' This seizure case perfectly aligns with the U.S. government's latest fiscal policy. Since March, the U.S. Treasury has been authorized to include seized digital assets into the 'Strategic Bitcoin Reserve' as a 'digital currency' mechanism to supplement gold reserves. Through the seizure of the Prince Group, this reserve surged by 64% overnight, equivalent to about 3.5% of the dollar value of U.S. gold reserves. Currently, the amount of Bitcoin held by the U.S. government is second only to Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy. The Department of Justice no longer sells Bitcoin but rather 'holds long-term' - as required by the presidential executive order on March 6. Law enforcement has now become part of 'accumulation.' The U.S. government has officially become a Bitcoin long positions. Bitcoin, originally a rebellion against the fiat system, is slowly transforming into part of the collateral pile for fiat. Crypto punks might as well raise a toast to this irony: the revolution has been seized and then recorded under 'inventory.' Related Reports CoinW Statement: The exchange has nothing to do with CoinX! Absolutely no high-level legal involvement, maintaining compliance against fraud 'CoinX' involved in laundering $2.3 billion! Colluding with a fraud group with over a thousand victims, the responsible person seeks 25 years imprisonment Heavy penalties for cryptocurrency fraud! A New York man fined $228 million for fraud, serving nine years in prison <Who stole 127,000 Bitcoins? Tracing the truth from the 'Pig-butchering Empire' to the LuBian mining farm> This article was first published on BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news media.