A Chinese national who scammed $27 million from 2,000 elderly Americans and was famously caught red-handed in a viral YouTube video has been sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Los Angeles-based Jiandong Chen, nicknamed “Little Tiger,” had pleaded guilty in April to taking part in the money-laundering scheme with several accomplices.
The scheme, run by five people from 2021 to 2023, impersonated banks, the government and tech support while using refund scams to defraud elderly victims, mostly in their 70s and 80s, according to the US Attorney’s Office.
The victims received emails, phone calls and pop-ups directing them to call a phone number linked to a sham call center in India.
Once on the phone, the scammers then persuaded victims to send money to people involved with the fraud in locations primarily throughout Southern California and Nevada. The money was sent to Chen and others via mail packages or wire transfers, but occasionally, there were in-person pickups directly from the victims.
During one pickup in July 2023, the scam-fighting YouTube duo Trilogy Media set up an elaborate sting operation to trap Chen. Part of the video shows them confronting the scammer, who showed up in the video to collect the cash from what he thought was an elderly victim.
“This is illegal. Illegal,” YouTuber Ashton Bingham told the scammer. “You know that?”
Chen cited a language barrier to say that he wasn’t able to fully understand before taking in a car with an accomplice.
Bingham and fellow scam-buster Art Kulik were present at Chen’s sentencing, the attorney’s office said.
Chen moved to the US in November 2022 and became involved in the scheme in February 2023, prosecutors said. Numerous videos showed him retrieving packages from victims and counting their money.
He was arrested by police in June 2023 but still continued collecting money toward the end of the year, prosecutors said.
In his plea agreement, Chen admitted to taking $9.5 million from victims, using fake IDs and frequently moving to avoid police.
“These victims weren’t foolish. They were lied to and exploited by a sophisticated criminal network,” said US Attorney Adam Gordon in a statement. “Stopping fraud takes an online village. We’ll keep prosecuting aggressively, but with friends to our cause like Ash and Art, we can do even more.”
US District Judge Robert S. Huie condemned Chen during the sentencing for targeting vulnerable people.
The money taken from elderly victims was “more than just money,” Huie said, and included “people’s self-respect, their dignity, trust with their family members.”
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