Thai Police Bust $14M Crypto Ponzi Mastermind in Bangkok
hai police raided a luxury three‑story house in Bangkok’s Wang Thonglang district and arrested Chinese national Liang Ai‑Bing. Authorities believe he was the mastermind behind a massive crypto Ponzi scheme. The operation reportedly targeted nearly 100 investors, mostly from China, lured by promises too good to be true.
At the heart of the case is a DeFi platform called FINTOCH, which ran from December 2022 until May 2023. The platform attracted attention by offering a suspiciously high return of 1 percent per day and claiming ties to Morgan Stanley.
That connection was completely fake, and Morgan Stanley quickly came out to deny any involvement.
On‑chain analysts dug into the data and found that the platform moved roughly 31.6 million USDT through Ethereum and Tron bridges. While Thai news reports mentioned the fraud was worth around 14 million dollars, blockchain evidence points to a much larger sum being involved.
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To add a layer of fake legitimacy, the scheme introduced a fictional CEO named “Bob Lambert” and even used a photo of actor Michael Provenzano to sell the illusion. Liang rented the Bangkok property for about 4,645 dollars a month, turning it into the headquarters for the scam.
The platform lured users in with bold claims, misleading links, and fake guarantees, convincing many to trust what looked like a credible operation.
Liang is now looking at multiple charges, including illegal possession of a firearm and entering Thailand without permission. Law enforcement teams from China and Thailand worked together behind the scenes, shared intelligence, and laid the groundwork for extraditing Liang to China to face further legal action.
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This particular scam is one of the most significant crypto fraud cases to hit in 2023. It caught the attention of regulators across Asia. In May 2023, Singapore’s Monetary Authority warned about the dangers of similar setups, pointing to just how serious the fallout can be from these kinds of platforms.
Cases like this are a wake-up call. For everyday investors, it shows just how important it is to dig into the details before trusting a platform with your money. Big daily returns and flashy names are often a front for something far riskier. For regulators, it highlights the ongoing need for international cooperation and tighter oversight of the crypto space to catch scams before they snowball.
