The U.S. government has seized bitcoin worth nearly $15 billion and charged a joint U.K.-Cambodian businessman, Prince Holding Group Chairman Chen Zhu, with wire fraud and money laundering. The Justice Department says the bitcoin is currently in U.S. government custody and calls the seizure the “largest forfeiture action” in the department’s history.

In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, N. Y., prosecutors allege that Chen and unnamed co-conspirators exploited forced labor at cyber scam centers in Cambodia, bilking would-be investors out of billions of dollars, using some of the proceeds to purchase yachts, jets, even a Picasso.

Chen remains at large. If found — and convicted — he faces up to 40 years in prison.

The indictment says people held against th

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