Google’s Pig-Butchering Lawsuit Ended in a Ban, Not Repayment

Judge Margaret M. Garnett banned two app developers from every Google product after they ignored a racketeering case over 87 fake investment apps.

Yunfeng Sun, also called Alphonse Sun, and Hongnam Cheung, also called Zhang Hongnim and Stanford Fischer, never answered the complaint. Google said they lived in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The default, entered on October 17, 2024 in Manhattan, closed Google LLC v. Sun. It did not return money to the at least 100,000 people who downloaded the apps, and on September 28, 2026 a San Jose judge held that a victim of a similar Play Store crypto app cannot sue Google for reviewing it.

Google Sued After 87 Apps Cleared Play Review

Google LLC filed the case on April 4, 2024 in the Southern District of New York as 1:24-cv-02559. The complaint asked for a civil claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, plus contract claims on Play, YouTube, Voice, and other product rules. Then-general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado said Google believed it was the first tech firm to take crypto scammers to court.

The filing said the pair and unnamed helpers had uploaded about 87 crypto and investment apps since at least 2019, replacing listings as fast as Play took them down. Google records put downloads at at least 100,000, including 8,700 in the United States. User complaints put individual losses from $100 to tens of thousands of dollars. Some SkypeWallet users told Google they lost up to $75,000.

Google said its own investigation and safety work on the scheme cost more than $75,000, the injury floor for a civil RICO claim. That figure is Google’s spend, not a victim tally, and the lawsuit never stated a total amount stolen.

THE PLAY STORE TALLY

• Apps named: About 87 fraudulent listings, including Starlight and SkypeWallet.
• Downloads: At least 100,000 worldwide, with 8,700 in the United States.
• Starlight: At least 23,000 downloads on Play, aimed at users in Ghana.
• Google’s costs: More than $75,000 to investigate and staff safety work.

Play’s developer rules already forbade apps that expose users to deceptive financial products, including fake crypto investing. Google still had to sue after the fact because the listings had already gone live.

How Did the Fake Play Apps Reach Users?

Google’s complaint described three recruiting paths that funneled strangers into the same frozen wallets. Wrong-number texts started the romance pitch, YouTube clips sold a fake coin, and a Ghana-facing “task” app asked for deposits up front. In each version the balance on screen moved like a real market until a withdrawal request hit a fee, a tax, or a silent account freeze.

HOW THE APPS FOUND THEIR MARKS

• Wrong-number texts: Google Voice lines sent notes such as “I miss you all the time, how are your parents Mike?” and “I am Sophia, do you remember me?” then moved the chat to WhatsApp.
• YouTube and affiliates: Clips pitched SkypeWallet as the place to buy SkypeCoin, a token that did not exist, and paid people to sign others up.
• Task-app deposits: Starlight told users in Ghana they could earn by watching videos and completing jobs, then required a deposit they could not pull out.

Once money was in, the apps showed gains that Google called illusory. When users tried to cash out, operators asked for more payments that would supposedly unlock the account. Friends and “partners” who had walked victims through the first transfer then disappeared. Google Voice numbers tied to one Workspace account were later suspended after victims reported about 130 spam texts.

The complaint said the developers also talked about an in-person conference for investment advice. That extra layer of theater is the method’s whole point. A store icon and a chat history make a fake desk look staffed.

The Starlight Project Left 6,000 Ghanaians Empty

In early 2022 the same operation stood up a company called the Starlight Project and even opened an office in Hohoe, Ghana. Promoters used Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and live events to push the Starlight app. The pitch was simple: watch YouTube videos, finish tasks, get paid.

Users had to deposit money before the “earnings” started, and withdrawals never cleared. Abuse reports to Google called Starlight a “big scam” and a “Ponzi scheme.” The complaint cited Ghanaian press accounts that more than 6,000 people were left with nothing. Google’s own records put Starlight downloads at at least 23,000.

Starlight is the piece of the case that is not a lonely text thread. It had a street address, a launch party, and a public collapse. Agents vanished after a June 2022 gathering in Hohoe, according to the local reporting Google folded into the file. That is a storefront fraud that still needed Play as the download pipe.

What Did Google’s Default Judgment Order?

Judge Garnett entered default after Sun was served by email on May 31, 2024 and Cheung on July 12, 2024, as the court had allowed. Neither man answered. The permanent injunction on October 17, 2024 bars them, their officers, agents, employees, successors, and anyone acting with them from using Google services, opening accounts, or promoting their apps on Google products. The clerk was told to close the case. The order does not award a dollar figure to Google or to users.

FROM FILING TO DEFAULT

1. April 4, 2024: Google files the RICO complaint in Manhattan against Sun and Cheung.
2. May 31, 2024: Sun is served by email under the court’s service order.
3. July 12, 2024: Cheung is served by email the same way.
4. October 17, 2024: Default judgment and a permanent Google-wide ban; the docket closes.
5. February 24, 2026: Ray Hemry sues Google in San Jose over a different Play crypto app, Watsans Exchange.
6. September 28, 2026: Judge P. Casey Pitts dismisses Hemry’s claims, with an amended complaint due October 26, 2026.

A closed docket against two men who never appeared is a clean win on paper. It is also a hard way to collect. The injunction can keep new aliases off Gmail, Voice, YouTube, and Play if Google can match them. It cannot reverse a wire that already left a U.S. or Ghanaian bank account.

Section 230 Closed the Door on a Play Store Victim

Ray Hemry filed in the Northern District of California on February 24, 2026, case 5:26-cv-01611. He said he trusted Google’s claims that Play was safe, then downloaded a crypto trading app called Watsans Exchange that he says was a scam. That listing is not one of the 87 apps in Google LLC v. Sun. It is the same class of Play Store investment fraud, aimed at the company that ran the store rather than at developers who do not show up.

Hemry pleaded negligence, false advertising, and a California Unfair Competition Law claim. Google moved to dismiss under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing the suit tried to hold it liable for reviewing third-party apps. On September 28, 2026, Judge Pitts issued an order granting the motion to dismiss and gave Hemry until October 26, 2026 to amend.

THE TWO DOCKETS

Google can sue developers as a platform that was abused. When a user sues Google as the store that carried the app, Section 230 still treats that review as publisher conduct. That split is why a RICO banner and an empty victim file can sit on the same fact pattern.

Crypto Investment Fraud Cost $7.2 Billion in 2025

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged 1,008,597 complaints for 2025, the first time the tally crossed one million. The bureau said cyber-enabled crimes took nearly $21 billion. Americans who reported cryptocurrency in those complaints numbered 181,565 and described more than $11 billion in crypto-linked losses.

Cryptocurrency investment fraud, the pig-butchering bucket, was the largest single loss line. The Justice Department, citing the same annual report, put those losses at $3.96 billion in 2023, $5.8 billion in 2024, and over $7.2 billion in 2025.

WHAT THE LOSS FILES COUNT

Those rows are not the same pile of money. The FBI counts what victims reported in a calendar year. FinCEN counted 33,904 Bank Secrecy Act filings over 28 months and found about $12.7 billion in suspected scam activity, including mule accounts and exchange hops. Google’s 87 apps are one pipe inside that traffic, not the whole industry.

Digital asset investment scams pose one of the most significant fraud threats facing Americans today.

Gene Lange, performing the duties of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, FinCEN, September 3, 2026

FinCEN said the crews run out of compounds in Southeast Asia, buy help on “guarantee marketplaces,” and move funds through professional launderers and stablecoins. A Play listing is useful to them because it looks like a product a phone already trusts.

Play’s Own Rules Already Banned the Lie

Google’s complaint said the defendants made “misrepresentations about their identity, location, and the type and nature of the application being uploaded” so the packages would clear review. Play’s public rules still bar developers from misrepresenting identity, location, or purpose, and from hiding a country of origin to target users somewhere else. Deceptive-behavior rules also ban tricks that change an app’s conduct when a reviewer is watching.

In a February 2026 security post, Google said Play runs over 10,000 safety checks on every app it publishes and keeps checking after release. Identity checks for new developer accounts have been tightening since 2023. That is not in dispute in Google LLC v. Sun. The dispute the filing actually records is that 87 apps still got through, some of them more than once, under fresh names and fresh infrastructure.

Google’s complaint even stepped around the street name for the crime. A footnote said the company “neither adopts nor endorses” the phrase pig butchering, the English gloss of sha zhu pan, fattening a hog before the slaughter. The legal papers used investment fraud, wire fraud, and racketeering instead. The users who could not withdraw still lost the same money.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who did Google name in the Play Store pig-butchering case?

The defendants are Yunfeng Sun, also known as Alphonse Sun, believed to be in Shenzhen, and Hongnam Cheung, also known as Zhang Hongnim and Stanford Fischer, believed to be in Hong Kong. The court authorized email service, which went out on May 31, 2024 for Sun and July 12, 2024 for Cheung. Proof of service was filed on July 26, 2024, and neither man filed an answer before default.

Did the default judgment repay people who downloaded the apps?

No. Victims were not parties, and Judge Garnett’s order contains no damages number. Google had asked for an unspecified sum plus an injunction. The $75,000-plus figure in the complaint is Google’s own investigation and safety spend, used to clear civil RICO’s injury threshold, not a restitution fund.

Which Google products besides Play did the complaint tie to the scheme?

Google said the operation used Google Voice for the first texts, Google Workspace and Gmail to stand up accounts, and YouTube to host promo videos, including clips for SkypeWallet and SkypeCoin. Each of those products has its own terms, and the complaint pleaded breach of those contracts alongside the RICO count.

Why did Google file a civil RICO case over app listings?

Civil RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962, lets a private plaintiff sue over a pattern of racketeering. Google said the pattern was hundreds of acts of wire fraud through the fake apps and the payment rails behind them. A civil RICO plaintiff also has to show injury over $75,000; Google pointed to its investigation costs rather than to user balances it does not hold.

Can Sun and Cheung publish on Google Play again?

The injunction is written to follow them. It covers the two men and officers, directors, principals, agents, servants, employees, successors, assigns, and anyone affiliated or conspiring with them, and it bars aiding or abetting the same conduct. New aliases still have to get past Play’s identity checks, and Google can point to this order if it matches infrastructure to the old accounts.

Judge Garnett’s injunction still bars Sun and Cheung from Google’s products. Hemry has until October 26, 2026 to refile. Neither order returns the money the apps took.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on court filings, a default judgment, and public fraud data. It is informational only and is not legal advice, investment advice, or guidance on any claim against Google, app developers, or a bank. Readers who lost money to an investment app should speak with a licensed attorney in their jurisdiction and, in the United States, consider filing with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center before they act on any deadline. Figures and case statuses come from the complaint, the October 17, 2024 order, the Hemry docket as of the September 28, 2026 dismissal, and the cited agency releases, and they can change if a party amends a pleading or a court issues a later order.