By Forum Staff
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Friday that a Bayside woman has been charged with stealing approximately $2.1 million from 17 victims across the country through what is known as a “pig butchering scam.”
These schemes involve crooks who develop relationships with victims under false pretenses and then lure them into fake financial investments.
Tiffany Yang, 35, was arraigned last Wednesday on a 27-count criminal complaint charging her with grand larceny in the first degree, criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree, six counts of grand larceny in the second degree, 11 counts of grand larceny in the third degree, seven counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree and scheme to defraud in the first degree.
According to the charges and investigation, one of the victims began chatting with an individual named “Lily List” over Facebook messenger in March 2023. After several days of chatting, the individual suggested switching the conversation to WhatsApp, which is end-to-end encrypted. Eventually, the individual posed a financial opportunity to the victim on a trading platform called Spread Ex Ltd., with a website that appeared to be a lawful trading site. The provided URL was very close to Spread Ex, which is a legitimate financial and betting services company.
A short while later, the victim began wiring money from his personal accounts to what he believed to be his personal Spread Ex Ltd. account – depositing a total of $1,086,244 through 13 wire transfers between March 2023 and February 2024. During this time period, the victim was able to log into the alleged website and view his “investments,” which appeared to be growing.
Eventually, the victim attempted to withdraw money from the account but was unable to do so. He eventually lost access to the Spread Ed Ltd website before it was removed in its entirety.
The subsequent investigation surrounding the victim’s losses determined that one of the victim’s wire transfers was deposited into a JP Morgan Chase account linked to an address of 153-53 77th Ave., Apartment 2B. A records search revealed that at least 97 JP Morgan Chase customers, many purporting to be businesses, have used the same address as the listed address on the accounts. Some of the names on these accounts were Jian Ma Foot Spa 2 Inc., Chen Graceful Nails, Inc., Chen the Bronx Bar Inc., Chen New Funny Nail Inc., Chen I love Spa Inc., Fend Thao Nail Inc., and others. A further review showed multiple wire transfers into these accounts that were recalled or were confirmed to be fraudulent by the sender.
DA squad investigators identified an additional 16 victims who had wired their money into the Chase accounts registered to Apartment 2B from August 2023 through January 2024. Each victim stated that they had spoken to a female online who had promised them great investment opportunities. Following these conversations, each victim wired the money believing that they were making successful financial decisions. A short while later, the victims tried unsuccessfully to withdraw their funds and eventually lost all access to their investment accounts.
Deed records from the City Department of Finance indicated that the defendant was the registered owner of the condominium. An IP address used to log into the Chase account for Chen Graceful Nails Inc. was traced back to her house in Bayside.
If convicted of the top count, Yang faces a potential maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
