World Liberty received $100M from businessman suspected of money laundering

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World Liberty received $100 million

Source of the $100 million remains unclear

Before his involvement with Aqua 1, Zhou ran a British flooring retailer that underwent restructuring without repaying around $5 million owed to his father’s company. He later launched the crypto project Caduceus, whose token had become virtually worthless by 2024 after the company raised about $7.6 million in funding.

Caduceus also claimed backing from China Merchants Securities UK and the Bin Zayed Group, founded by a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family. Both organizations told The New York Times that representations about their involvement were unauthorized and materially false.

After relocating to the UAE, Zhou led crypto venture fund Web3Port. In January 2025, the firm announced a $10 million investment in World Liberty. A Web3Port entity registered in the British Virgin Islands later changed its name to Aqua 1 GP Limited, and two weeks later Aqua 1 announced its $100 million WLFI purchase.

According to Arkham Intelligence, a wallet linked to Web3Port purchased $20 million worth of WLFI in January 2025. Another address believed to be controlled by Aqua 1 bought an additional $80 million worth of tokens in June.

Aqua 1 previously denied having ties to Web3Port but did not specify which claims it considered inaccurate.

The New York Times was unable to determine the source of the $100 million used to purchase WLFI. According to the newspaper, under World Liberty’s revenue-sharing arrangement, as much as $75 million from the transaction may have gone to a company controlled by Donald Trump and his sons.

Millions for Trump

World Liberty Financial (WLF) is a decentralized finance crypto project launched in September 2024 by Donald Trump’s family and its partners. The project issues the WLFI governance token and its own USD1 stablecoin, while Trump and entities linked to his family received a significant economic stake in the business. Under the original revenue-sharing model, Trump-linked entities were entitled to receive most of the proceeds from WLFI token sales.

World Liberty quickly became one of Trump’s largest sources of crypto-related income. According to his 2025 financial disclosure, the president received more than $500 million from World Liberty-related business, including sales of governance tokens, stablecoins, and other crypto assets. By comparison, his 2024 disclosure listed $57.3 million in income from WLF token sales. In just one year, the project became a source of hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump and one of the most profitable parts of his business empire.

As a reminder, World Liberty Financial and the Sui Foundation announced a partnership.

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