In a dramatic raid on a luxury villa in Pattaya, Thailand, authorities arrested a Chinese couple-Wu Di, 27 and her boyfriend Zhou Zongyon, 29-for their alleged involvement in a massive cryptocurrency scam and a high-profile kidnapping case.

During the investigation, Thai authorities also found that her account was linked to 63 other fraud cases, with the stolen funds amounting to a whopping $18 million.

The crypto heist

Wu Di is accused of masterminding a sophisticated cryptocurrency scam that stole more than 600 million baht from victims over a span of just two months.

Wu would conduct her fraud on Facebook where she would contact the targets and work to convince them to invest in a fictitious Singapore-dollar-denominated investment fraud with promises of quick returns. One of her victims was a Thai teacher, who initially invested a small amount and received a smaller return, which she was able to withdraw.

Over the next 16 days, she started to invest large amounts of money into the fraudulent scheme. Eventually, the scammers went dark and she never saw her money again. In the end, she lost a total of 1.5 million baht.

Investigators found that the stolen money was funneled through four Thai-controlled "puppet accounts," converted into USDT, and transferred to Wu’s digital wallet in Cambodia via peer-to-peer transactions on Binance and other exchanges.

During the raid, police found significant evidence of the fraud on her phone. The images on her phone also depicted Wu's lavish lifestyle funded by the scam, including luxury cars, large cash reserves, and suspected drug use. Despite overwhelming evidence, Wu denied involvement, claiming it was her ex-boyfriend who opened the account to hide funds for a criminal organisation.

The Fugitive Boyfriend with a Dark Past

Zhou Zongyon, who was apprehended alongside Wu, turns out to be a fugitive wanted by Interpol for kidnapping. He is accused of abducting a Chinese woman in Cambodia, sending her family disturbing images of her torture, demanding for a ransom of 1 million yuan.

Till date, the woman he kidnapped is still missing. On top of the kidnapping charges, Zhou would also be charged for assisting the money transfer for the scam. An initial investigation revealed that Zhou had no Thai entry stamps in his passport, which Zhou later admitted to illegally entering the country through the Cambodian border.

Both Wu and Zhou are expected to face legal proceedings in Thailand before being extradited to China for further prosecution under Chinese law. Thai authorities have also arrested three individuals linked to the mule accounts used in the scam and are pursuing additional suspects as investigations continue.

The arrests shed light on how social media platforms like Facebook are being weaponized for financial fraud. By combining traditional scams with modern crypto tools like P2P transactions and stablecoins, criminals are creating sophisticated operations that are difficult to trace.

As cryptocurrencies gain mainstream adoption, cases like this serve as a stark reminder of the risks involved and the importance of regulatory oversight. For now, Thai authorities remain vigilant as they unravel what could be one of Southeast Asia’s most significant crypto crime networks to date.