Cryptocurrency chaos: Trump pardons Binance founder - Now the DOJ is hunting for Chen Zhi, another crypto kingpin

The crypto world was thrown into chaos this week after Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao... and within hours, U.S. authorities announced a sweeping new manhunt for another alleged digital crime lord: Chen Zhi.

Why does Trump keep letting criminals free?

Zhao, who pleaded guilty last year to enabling money laundering through Binance, walked free after what the White House called a “correction of injustice.” According to CNBC, the pardon followed months of lobbying from figures close to the Trump family and Binance’s own campaign to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world.”

But while one crypto billionaire was spared, another is now the FBI’s top target. Chen Zhi, a 37-year-old Chinese-Cambodian tycoon, is accused of masterminding a vast cyber-fraud empire that, according to the BBC, “profited from human suffering” through forced labor and crypto scams run from compounds in Cambodia. The U.S. Treasury has already seized $14 billion in bitcoin allegedly tied to him – the largest such confiscation in history.

Chen’s Prince Group once boasted glittering real estate projects, luxury hotels and even an airline. Now, U.S. prosecutors describe it as the hub of a “transnational crime network” stretching from Phnom Penh to New York.

Zhao may be celebrating a presidential pardon, but for Chen Zhi – who vanished days after being charged – the future looks far less forgiving.

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