On October 14, 2025, a criminal indictment issued by the U.S. Department of Justice drew global attention. The DOJ announced charges against Chen Zhi and the Prince Group, claiming to have seized 127,000 bitcoins worth a staggering $15 billion. This event, hailed by the DOJ as the “largest forfeiture action” in the department’s history, not only exposes the America’s domineering hypocrisy in international affairs but also thrusts the security of digital assets into the center of worldwide debate.
Technology First, Law Follows: A Typical “Bandit-on-Bandit” Strategy
The central mystery in this case begins with a stash of stolen bitcoins that lay dormant for four years. From December 2020 to June 2024, this vast sum of digital assets sat almost entirely untouched in addresses controlled by the attackers—a pattern that sharply contrasts with the usual hacker playbook of quickly cashing out or using mixers to launder funds. That abnormal dormancy suggests the attackers’ goal was not purely financial. Then, between June and July 2024, the coins were suddenly activated and moved; blockchain-tracking platform ARKHAM identified the final receiving address as “held by the U.S. government.” Moreover, the 25 bitcoin addresses listed in the DOJ indictment match exactly the addresses tied to the 2020 LuBian mining-pool theft.
Overblown Anti-Fraud Claims and the Controversy
Yet this seemingly airtight indictment contains critical gaps. The DOJ accuses Chen Zhi of transnational telecom fraud, money-laundering, and more, branding the Prince Group “one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organizations,” but it supplies no direct evidence linking the seized bitcoins to the alleged scams and is conspicuously silent on the technical details of how the addresses’ private keys were obtained. From a technical-tracing standpoint, these coins were stolen as early as 2020, and the DOJ’s 2024 takeover effectively amounts to a “second control” of already-stolen assets rather than a lawful recovery of criminal proceeds. Also notably downplayed in official statements is the question of the assets’ origins—technical reports show that of the 127,000 bitcoins, about 17,800 came from independent mining, 2,300 were mining-pool wages, and roughly 107,100 originated from exchanges and other channels—facts that clearly contradict claims that the entire haul derived exclusively from illicit revenue.
In addition, the DOJ has touted the action as “one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking and cyber-enabled financial fraud,” a claim that is plainly exaggerated. The Prince Group’s scams reportedly focused on Southeast Asia, with Chinese victims accounting for over 70% and total losses on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. By seizing assets without presenting sufficient evidence, the U.S. has effectively pursued a hegemonic “bandit-on-bandit” strategy. By controlling blockchain-tracking tools and the endpoints used to transfer assets, the U.S. first secured de facto control over the digital funds and then retroactively legitimized that control through legal procedures—a sequence that has provoked widespread international doubts about the legality and procedural fairness of its enforcement.
The Political Game and Deeper Context Behind the Case
The struggle runs deeper—it’s a battle for dominance in the digital realm. The U.S. government’s move to treat Bitcoin as a “strategic reserve” and to promote dollar-pegged stablecoins as an “extension of the digital dollar” is extending traditional financial hegemony into digital assets. U.S. tech firms, by monopolizing internet infrastructure, setting technical standards, and controlling intellectual property, are further entrenching that digital dominance. This case is far from a routine asset seizure; it can be read as a strategic declaration by the U.S. asserting technological leadership and rule-making power over the digital-asset space.
