Newcastle, Washington man sentenced to 5 years in prison for helping overseas fraudsters smuggle their proceeds via money transfers and bitcoin

Seattle - A 47-year-old resident of Newcastle, Washington, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering for his scheme to take in fraud proceeds and forward them to coconspirators' bank accounts and cryptocurrency addresses, announced First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd. Geoffrey K. Auyeung was arrested in August 2024 and pleaded guilty last February. At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said, his sentence was driven by "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."

"Mr. Auyeung facilitated a fraud, developed by others, that stole investor money while lulling them with promises of a legitimate escrow account," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd. "And even after he was indicted and arrested, 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."

According to records filed in the case, Auyeung set up at least nine different entities that he used to accept proceeds from investors who thought they were investing in the oil and gas industry. The names of business entities that offered purported investments related to oil and gas were Sea Forest International LLC.; Apex Oil and Gas Trading LLC.; Navigator Energy Logistics LLC.; Terminal Energy International Escrow Service LLC.; Energo Horizons Logistics (EA) LLC.; Legacy Energy Logistics Transport Group LLC.; Green Tree Gateway LLC, Dragon Timbers International LLC; and ANS & Partners International Limited.

From at least August 2022 through August 2024, co-schemers convinced victims to send money to what was represented as escrow accounts to purchase oil tank storage in either Rotterdam, Netherlands, or Houston. The schemers indicated that the investors could make significant profits by renting the oil tank storage they obtained to others. However, once the funds came into accounts controlled by Auyeung, the money was quickly moved into other accounts, moved offshore, or was used to purchase cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Tether, USD Coin, and Ethereum, via cryptocurrency exchanges such as Gemini, BitStamp, and Coinbase. Much of the cryptocurrency was further transferred to accounts at the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The Binance accounts were controlled by the same individual or individuals located in Nigeria and Russia. Victims were not sent any further information on their investment and Auyeung and others simply stopped responding.

Auyeung opened at least 81 different bank accounts at 24 different financial institutions. And he opened 19 accounts on eight different cryptocurrency exchanges. Between June 2022 and July 2024, those accounts received $97.1 million in domestic and international third-party wire transfers and other third-party deposits. The government believes that all of the deposits in Auyeung's accounts represent fraud proceeds.

In arguing for the 63-month sentence prosecutors wrote that Auyeung was active in trying to hide the ill-gotten gains for coconspirators. Auyeung "…provided financial institutions with fictitious descriptions of the transactions and referenced fictitious supporting documents, including loan agreements. He directed his co-conspirators to cycle through various entities and financial accounts he controlled in an effort to reduce scrutiny from financial institutions, regulators, and law enforcement. He transferred victim funds between and among accounts he controlled with no business purpose. And, he rapidly converted vast sums of fiat funds into cryptocurrency, which he then rapidly dispersed to various deposit addresses provided by his co-conspirators."

One victim traveled all the way from the United Kingdom to look Auyeung in the eye at sentencing to tell him, "You caused a lot of pain."

As Auyeung became more aware of the fraud, he demanded higher commission from the coconspirators. In all he received at least $4,078,348 in commission payments.

Even after Auyeung was indicted in this scheme, he continued to communicate with the coconspirators and with victims who thought they were investing in oil and gas storage. Between August 2024, and December 2025, Auyeung accepted an additional $400,000 in commissions by funneling deposits through bank accounts in his wife's name.

Calculation of restitution has been referred to a Magistrate Judge. The government asked for $24,707,031 in restitution.

Auyeung is forfeiting approximately $2.3 million in funds and cash seized from his bank accounts and home at the time of his arrest, as well as an Audi SQ8. He further agreed not to contest the civil forfeiture of some $7.1 million seized from various cryptocurrency wallets. He also agreed to relinquish about $300,000 currently in his bank accounts to pay toward his restitution obligation.

Judge Coughenour noted the effort prosecutors put in to trying to help victims saying, "The efforts the U.S. Attorney's Office in this case to retrieve funds is very impressive…. The conduct was superb."

The case is being investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI).

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jehiel I. Baer and Yunah Chung.