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Ahmed Barakat
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An investigation by The Wall Street Journal Found That World Liberty Financial, Trump’s cryptocurrency project, has partnered with a virtual currency company called AB whose key figures have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department over alleged ties to a transnational pig-slaughter fraud network that has stolen billions from Americans.
The partnership, which enables the WLF stablecoin USD1 to operate on the AB Network, was announced less than a month after the October 14 sanctions. Chase Herro and Zachary Volkman, identified as key players in WLF’s operational strategy, are facing a Department of Justice investigation into previous entities linked to the same fraud infrastructure.
The question this story poses is a straightforward one: How could a presidential-branded cryptocurrency project partner with a company whose controlling shareholder and managing director were simultaneously sanctioned by the US government for running violent fraud pools?
- Fraud Scale: Prince’s group allegedly stole billions through pig slaughter operations across at least 10 compounds in Cambodia
- Sanctions sweep: The US Treasury imposed sanctions on more than 140 people and companies on October 14 over Prince’s group’s alleged involvement.
- Wolf connection: World Liberty Financial enabled its USD1 stablecoin on the AB Network less than a month after the sanctions were announced
- Sanctioned individuals: Yang Jian (controlling shareholder) and Yang Yanming (general manager) of AB Resort in East Timor were named in the treasury action
- Ministry of Justice audit: Federal investigators are examining past ventures of Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman — including Yield Game and Dough Finance — for infrastructure overlap with the fraud network.
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Who are Chase Herro and Zachary Volkman – and why is the Department of Justice looking?
Chase Herro and Zachary Volkman were profiled in the Wall Street Journal investigation As the driving forces behind the technical and operational direction of the WLF.
Federal investigators from Ministry of Justice The SEC is examining their previous ventures, specifically Yield Game and Dough Finance, for alleged infrastructure overlap with a pig slaughter syndicate that defrauded investors of more than $100 million globally.
Blockchain forensics cited in the investigation show that transactions flow from wallets associated with WLF’s early development to addresses linked to the fraud ring’s money laundering operations. WLF also reportedly hired developers and consultants who previously worked for those entities while they were already under federal scrutiny.
Neither Herro nor Volkmann were charged. WLF’s lawyers told the Wall Street Journal that the company only learned of AB’s connection to the sanctioned East Timor resort project in January 2026 — nearly two months after the partnership was announced.
What is pig slaughter, and how does this network connect to the WLF infrastructure?
Pig slaughter is a long-running fraudulent scheme in which operators, often using enslaved labor in offshore pools, build fake online relationships with victims before directing them to fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.
The US Department of Justice described the Prince Group, the organization at the center of this case, as running at least 10 violent fraud complexes in Cambodia using exactly this method.
WLF is contacted via AB, which has been developing a blockchain-style resort in East Timor.
Two of the men sanctioned on October 14, Yang Jian, the resort’s controlling shareholder, and Yang Yanming, its general manager, were specifically sanctioned for their alleged work for the Prince Group.
AB removed all three sanctioned individuals from the company shortly after the Treasury action, but the partnership with WLF was announced weeks later, regardless.
The legal exposure here is not guilt by association alone. If blockchain forensics confirms wallet-level links between WLF’s early development infrastructure and the fraud ring’s money laundering operations, as the investigation alleges, it moves the story from reputational damage to possibility. Sanctions evasion and fraud zone that supports cryptocurrencies Which federal prosecutors aggressively pursued.
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World Liberty Financial was launched in 2024 as a DeFi lending and governance protocol with the support of the Trump family, whose involvement gave immediate institutional visibility to the project.
The USD1 stablecoin, the specific product enabled on the AB Network, is WLF’s core financial infrastructure product and is designed to work across partner chains.
There is no evidence that Donald Trump or his family knew about the alleged illicit history of WLF’s technical partners. But the KYP failures described in the investigation are not minor. Imposing sanctions on more than 140 entities on the same day that your future partner’s two top officials appear on that list is the kind of due diligence failure that regulators treat as a structural problem, not an oversight.
The political dimension complicates every legal issue. Cryptocurrency companies face regulatory scrutiny for politically connected financial activities It operates under a different standard of attention from the press and Congress — and WLF, which has Trump’s name in every headline, has no buffer against that scrutiny.
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