Fnalysis.
Escape With Style
He was sentenced to 20 years for a $73 million crypto fraud, but cut off his ankle monitor and vanished
Daren Li pleaded guilty in 2024 to laundering over $73 million stolen from U.S. victims through fake crypto investment platforms run out of Cambodia. In December 2025, while awaiting sentencing under electronic monitoring, he cut off his ankle bracelet and fled. He was sentenced in absentia to the legal maximum: 20 years in prison.
The case exposes the limits of electronic monitoring in international financial crimes: despite being tracked, Li managed to disappear before final sentencing, and remains at large to this day, while U.S. prosecutors keep the in-absentia conviction on the books as a warning to others tied to the same fraud network.
Source: CoinDesk →The do run run.