World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-linked crypto venture, announced a deal in November to enable its USD1 stablecoin on a crypto network whose flagship resort project was controlled by two men the U.S. government had sanctioned weeks earlier as alleged operatives of an Asian scam ring, according to new reporting by The Wall Street Journal. 

The crypto network, AB, said its arrangement with World Liberty Financial was a partnership. World Liberty has called it a “limited non-exclusive technology integration,” according to the report. USD1 is the only stablecoin currently deployed on AB Chain, AB’s virtual-currency network, the newspaper said.

The Treasury Department on October 14 sanctioned more than 140 people and companies it linked to the Prince Group, which the U.S. Justice Department said operated at least 10 violent scam compounds in Cambodia where enslaved workers were forced to run “pig butchering” online schemes, according to the WSJ. At the time, FBI Director Kash Patel called the action “one of the largest financial fraud takedowns in history.” 

Among those sanctioned were Yang Jian, the controlling shareholder of an AB-affiliated “blockchain” resort planned for East Timor, and Yang Yanming, the resort’s general manager, the WSJ reported. The Treasury said the two men had previously worked to set up a separate resort in Palau controlled by Prince Group’s founder and described that unbuilt project as a “predatory investment.” 

World Liberty announced the AB arrangement on November 12, posting on X that “WLFI Partners with AB” and saying the deal “marks a key step in expanding USD1’s global adoption,” the newspaper said. 

A document reviewed by the WSJ shows the preliminary agreement between AB’s virtual-currency venture, an affiliated charitable foundation, and the resort company was terminated on November 27, after the World Liberty arrangement was announced, the report said. Mention of the resort was later removed from the AB website.

Yang Yanming told the WSJ he was dismissed from his AB resort post on October 16, two days after being sanctioned, and said he never had any business dealings with Prince Group. Yang Jian was removed as a shareholder on October 17, the WSJ reported. A Prince Group spokesman told the WSJ that neither its founder nor the group has any connection to AB, East Timor, or any activity in the country, and said it would defend itself against “false allegations” from U.S. authorities.

According to the WSJ, AB describes itself on its website as a collection of separate entities forming an “ecosystem” that includes AB Chain, a Cayman Islands-registered funding company, and an Ireland-registered charitable foundation whose advisory board includes prominent politicians from Europe, Latin America, and Africa.