A man who was revealed as a scammer in a popular YouTube video has confessed to being part of a large-scale fraud that tricked thousands of older people across the country.
Jiandong Chen, nicknamed “Little Tiger,” admitted in federal court in San Diego that he committed fraud and laundered money as part of a $27 million scheme, authorities said.
This case involves a widespread scheme that took place from 2021 to 2023. Investigators have found over 2,000 victims nationwide, and many were elderly – in their 70s and 80s.
YouTube confrontation captured scammer collecting cash
Chen previously appeared in a popular online video where a group of YouTubers exposed him trying to scam an elderly person out of money. The video, titled “CONFRONTING SCAMMERS WITH A FAKE FUNERAL (EPIC REACTIONS),” showed the moment he was caught.
Court records show Chen went to a home in the Los Angeles area to collect a large sum of money related to the plan. However, when he arrived, the content creators confronted him, claiming he was involved with a fraudulent scheme.
Turns out, Chen wasn’t working alone. The police figured out he was part of a whole scam ring – they were pretending to be all sorts of people online, like tech support, bank employees, even government officials. It was a pretty big operation, and they were using those fake identities to trick people.
It’s really frustrating to hear how these scammers operated. Basically, they’d just randomly call, email, or bombard you with pop-up ads, all trying to get you to dial a number that connected you to a call center somewhere in India. It was totally out of the blue and a way to start their schemes.
When scammers got people on the phone, they used clever manipulation to gain their trust. They frequently talked victims into downloading programs that allowed the scammers to control their computers remotely.
Refund scam used to trick victims into sending cash
A frequent scam involved falsely telling people they were due a refund. Victims would then be made to believe they’d received too much money.
Scammers would tell victims to send back money they claimed was sent in error, often using wire transfers or by mailing cash, despite the fact that no actual refund was ever given.
Chen confessed that he and his associates took money sent to victims, and often used fake identification under made-up names to pick up packages from stores.
In some cases, members of the group also carried out in-person cash pickups directly from victims.
Investigators stated the group cleaned the money they made illegally by using cryptocurrency. They sent the funds to other countries and used them to pay the people involved in the scheme.
Chen was arrested in August 2024 as part of a larger operation, and is one of five people facing charges in the investigation. He is the second defendant to be charged.
He will be sentenced on June 26, 2026, and could face as many as 40 years in prison for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud. He also faces extra penalties for laundering money.
In August 2025, the team at Trilogy Media, a group of YouTubers, assisted the FBI in dismantling a $65 million fraud operation that tragically resulted in one elderly person losing their entire life savings.
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2026-04-06 19:21