The Prince Group allegedly ran at least 10 fraudulent pools and stole billions through pig slaughter schemes targeting victims online.
World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump family, announced a partnership with a blockchain network called AB, less than a month after the US government imposed sanctions on more than 140 people and entities linked to what it described as one of Asia’s largest criminal organizations.
But according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), AB’s flagship resort project in East Timor involved three people sanctioned in that campaign, raising questions about due diligence in Trump-linked cryptocurrency deals.
The partnership and its relations to the sanctioned report
The collaboration, announced on November 12, 2025, gave AB the right to hold World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin on its blockchain network.
Share AB on X at that time described It is a move to strengthen the platform’s “decentralized payments and finance ecosystem.” But the Wall Street Journal He says The company was, until recently, also promoting a planned “blockchain resort” in the Southeast Asian nation of Timor-Leste, which had deep ties to people the U.S. Treasury had just blacklisted.
The resort’s company, AB Digital Technology Resort, was majority owned by Yang Jian, a Cypriot national who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for allegedly helping Prince Group CEO Chin Qi develop a separate resort in Palau, which the Treasury Department called a “predatory investment.”
Yang Yanming, the resort’s general manager, was also sanctioned, as was Shih Ting-yu, a Taiwanese national identified as working on the project. All three were removed from the company shortly after the October 14 sanctions were announced, company documents show, and none have been charged.
The Prince Group, based in Cambodia and accused by the US government of running at least ten violent fraud complexes, allegedly did this Stolen Billions are victimized through “pig slaughter” schemes, which are online relationships that are cultivated over time before the victim’s money is taken.
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Who is behind AB and what does global freedom say?
According to the Wall Street Journal report, the AB network presents itself as decentralized, with entities in Ireland and the Cayman Islands, but investigators have identified two Chinese-origin businessmen as central figures: Sui Chenggang, the beneficial owner of AB in the Cayman Islands, and Lin Xiaofan, a Guangdong-born businessman who travels on a St. Kitts and Nevis passport and, through his own account, introduced Sui to World Liberty executives.
Sui signed a memorandum of understanding with World Liberty on September 17, 2025, and claimed that the East Timor resort was “not discussed” during those talks.
Meanwhile, World Liberty’s lawyers said the company had done its due diligence on AB and was not aware of the resort or the people behind it. The company said it only learned of AB’s connection to the East Timor project in January 2026.
“The allegations attempting to link World Liberty Financial with sanctioned individuals are baseless and untrue,” the lawyers said.
For its part, AB stated that the resort was the result of a separate memorandum of understanding that was canceled in November, before reaching the “substantive implementation stage.”
The World Freedom Organization has faced scrutiny on other fronts as well. The company was too File a lawsuit against By Tron founder Justin Sun, who claimed that WLFI team members unjustifiably froze his tokens and threatened to burn them, a dispute the company says will be settled in court.
