Final Defendants Plead Guilty In $65 Million Elder Fraud Ring Exposed By YouTube Scambaiters
The final two arrested members of a sprawling $65 million fraud syndicate that preyed on thousands of elderly Americans have pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced Monday. With Friday’s guilty pleas from Zetian Zhang and Chinese national Haotian Zhang – whom U.S. District Judge Todd W. Robinson ordered immediately into custody – all 25 captured defendants in the multi-state operation have now been convicted. Three others remain at large.
Rooted in Southern California and composed largely of Chinese nationals – many of whom prosecutors say were in the U.S. illegally – the syndicate operated as the stateside muscle for India-based scam call centers. Callers overseas posed as tech support agents, bank employees, or government officials to panic elderly victims into withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars in physical cash. Victims were instructed to conceal the bills inside packages and ship them via express courier to fake names at rotating addresses across the country.
To collect the cash without leaving a trail, the ring ran a disciplined “hub-and-spoke” logistics network. Crews booked a central short-term rental as a headquarters for about a week while using nearby rentals as temporary drop sites for a few days at a time. Once the packages arrived, the operatives collected the cash, laundered the proceeds to obscure the fraud, and packed up for the next city.
Before federal agents rolled up the network, however, a group of YouTube “scambaiters” caught them on camera. In a series of viral stings filmed in 2020 and 2021, Pierogi of Scammer Payback and the duo behind Trilogy Media posed as victims, shipped decoy cash packages, and ambushed the money mules on the doorstep.
Prosecutors credited those videos with exposing the syndicate’s inner workings, pointing investigators toward upper-level bosses, and directly identifying several operatives, including Zhiyi Zhang, Dudu Chen, and Huajian Chen. In their plea agreements, both Zhiyi Zhang and Huajian Chen formally admitted they were the men confronted on camera in the YouTube stings.
“Not all heroes wear capes. Some have YouTube channels,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said when the indictments were unsealed.
The federal investigation began in December 2020 after an elderly victim who had been coerced into shipping bulk cash contacted an express carrier for help. That tip led authorities to intercept 11 packages containing roughly $135,000 in cash bound for San Diego-area short-term rentals.
After a multi-year investigation involving Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and roughly a dozen other agencies, federal agents executed a weeklong sweep across California, New York, Texas, and Michigan in August 2025. Authorities arrested 25 of the 28 indicted suspects and seized more than $4.2 million from financial accounts alongside several luxury vehicles. Zhiyi Zhang – one of the men caught on YouTube – was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Aug. 19, 2025, and tied to at least $1.8 million in victim losses.
The syndicate’s lead defendant, Hua Wang of Flushing, New York, pleaded guilty in June, admitting that between 2019 and 2023 he was responsible for more than 2,000 cash parcels totaling $64 million in victim losses. Over the past several months, eight other co-conspirators pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges – which carry maximum sentences of 40 and 20 years in prison, respectively – while Huajian Chen and Jianhao Gao pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Despite the praise from federal prosecutors, Pierogi has been quick to deflect sole credit for the takedown. “Scammer Payback did not dismantle this fraud ring,” his channel wrote following the arrests, emphasizing that federal agents built the case while his team provided supporting video evidence. Still, the human toll behind the stings remains personal for the creators. Appearing on the Shawn Ryan Show this month, Pierogi recalled one victim who had been manipulated into withdrawing $40,000 just a week after suffering a stroke.
Even with 25 convictions secured, the case represents just a fraction of a booming global industry. Americans aged 60 and older reported a record $7.7 billion in fraud losses to the FBI in 2025 – a nearly 60% surge over 2024, according to AARP, with tech and customer support schemes alone draining $2.1 billion from victims of all ages.
Bing Shen has already been sentenced to 70 months in custody, and the remaining sentencing hearings before Judge Robinson in San Diego run from Nov. 6 into February, with Hua Wang set for Nov. 20. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mokhtari and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Rookard.
