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A San Gabriel Valley woman pleaded guilty to one of the conspiracies to commit money laundering on Tuesday after being involved in a scheme that earned more than $11 million from as many as 180 victims across the United States.
Cynthia Song, 43, of Arcadia, was arrested by federal authorities in October 2024 and has served in federal custody, according to the release of the U.S. Department of Justice.
For just under two years, Song worked with a network of conspirators to target primarily elderly victims, scamming them to send money to multiple bank accounts in the Los Angeles area.
The conspirators who contacted the victim worked abroad, impersonating government officials, law enforcement agencies and customer support services. According to the Ministry of Justice, Posers deceived the victims with false threats, including requesting payments to avoid legal consequences and potential computer problems.
The money was sent to a Los Angeles-area bank account and managed by songs and other co-conspirators she hired. He was then sent overseas immediately. It says it was mainly sent to China.
Over 180 victims sent funds into these bank accounts. The payments requested by the victim ranged between $1,000 and $400,000. Prosecutors said that if the money was sent abroad, it could not be recovered even after the victim reported the fraud to authorities.
To participate in the money laundering ring, the release said the song recruited around 15 people living in the Los Angeles area. The recruits were tasked with not only transferring the victim’s payments, but also creating the entities and opening a bank account.
According to the release, the song also trained the bank to deceive the banks from revealing fraudulent accounts. Documents from the victims, photographed by the fraudster, were used to provide false verification of “large, suspicious wire transfers from the victims,” the release said.
According to prosecutors, songs and others who participated in the scheme spent about 5% to 10% of the payments they received before the money was sent abroad.
Song’s next court hearing is scheduled for September 16th, where she faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years and will have to pay compensation to the victim according to her release.
Homeland Security investigations and IRS criminal investigations were investigating the incident, the release said.
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