Washington Man Gets 5 Years for $97M Crypto Laundering

A federal court in Seattle on Tuesday sentenced Geoffrey Auyeung, 47, of Newcastle, Washington, to five years in prison for conspiring to launder $97.1 million from a fake oil-and-gas escrow scheme. Prosecutors say he converted investor deposits into cryptocurrency and moved funds offshore.

According to charging documents, Auyeung created at least nine business entities to receive money from investors who were told they were buying oil tank storage in Rotterdam or Houston and would earn returns from renting the tanks. Once deposits reached accounts he controlled, the funds were shifted offshore or converted into Bitcoin, Tether, USDC and Ethereum using exchanges including Gemini, BitStamp and Coinbase. Much of the cryptocurrency later flowed to Binance accounts tied to individuals in Nigeria and Russia. Victims received little or no information about their supposed investments.

Court records show Auyeung opened at least 81 bank accounts at 24 financial institutions and 19 accounts across eight crypto exchanges. Between June 2022 and July 2024 those accounts received $97.1 million in third-party transfers that prosecutors identified as proceeds of fraud. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said, “The scope and magnitude of this fraud. The defendant had every reason to know there was something wrong here… even taking money after the indictment.”

Prosecutors say Auyeung collected more than $4 million in commissions for concealing the proceeds and increased his fees as he became more aware of the scheme. Although arrested in August 2024, court filings state he continued to benefit: through December 2025 he collected roughly $400,000 more by routing deposits into bank accounts held in his wife’s name. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Floyd wrote that Auyeung “spent 16 months secretly still communicating with his co-conspirators and continuing to get his illicit fees by having the money go to his wife’s bank accounts. He showed utter disrespect for the law.”

As part of the resolution, Auyeung is forfeiting about $2.3 million seized from his accounts and home and an Audi SQ8. He will not contest civil forfeiture of $7.1 million in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies held in wallets. The government has requested $24.7 million in restitution; that request is under review by a magistrate judge.

The criminal charge was conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege Auyeung worked with overseas fraudsters who solicited investor deposits for a sham escrow offering tied to oil tank storage rental profits, then moved the money through U.S. banks, converted it to cryptocurrency and funneled proceeds to accounts abroad. The case involved the combined use of traditional bank accounts and multiple cryptocurrency platforms to obscure the origin and destination of stolen investor funds and to move proceeds across borders.