The Haidian District People’s Court of Beijing sentenced five individuals to prison for operating an illegal cross-border foreign exchange operation worth over $1.18 billion using cryptocurrencies. All defendants pleaded guilty and accepted prison terms ranging from two to four years, without plans for appeal.
A report released by the Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate on October 28 highlighted the case to demonstrate its high-quality and efficient performance in the financial sector (2024-2025). It was discovered that the gang used cryptocurrency as a means to transfer funds across borders illegally between January and August 2023.
Under the instruction of others, Lin Jia colluded with Lin Chen, Bao, Yi, and Xia to use multiple bank cards under their names, which were linked to an illegal foreign exchange company upstream. Through these cards, the five reportedly received large sums of RMB funds from clients, such as Liu and others.
Lin Moujia converts received RMB to USDT through Tether accounts
The report revealed that Lin Moujia and others swapped the received RMB with USDT through multiple Tether accounts under their control. They then completed cross-border transfers through platform transactions as a cover to disguise the forex activity from which they profited.
The five defendants, including Bao Moumou and Xia Moumou, moved amounts ranging from over RMB 149 million to over RMB 469 million. However, the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate (BMP) said it has successfully thwarted new crypto crimes by establishing a comprehensive evidence system and optimizing its case-handling strategies. Meanwhile, it acknowledged the challenges posed by the high concealment in crypto transactions. It also acknowledged the difficulty in obtaining cross-border data evidence and the ease with which criminals confuse the nature of their activities.
The BMP further explained that it has restructured its case-handling approach by merging crypto characteristics and transaction patterns, using financial data as a starting point. The procuratorate now compares temporal correlations between bank and crypto trading accounts and analyzes abnormal fund flows. It boasted of accurately identifying multiple anomalies by tracing crypto transactions in real-time.
The Beijing Municipal Procuratorate also noted that it faces more formidable challenges from highly professional, technical, and covert financial criminals. It asserted that it is committed to handling each case efficiently despite crypto criminals developing increasingly sophisticated methods and complex patterns.
Court rules out crypto speculation as an unreasonable excuse
Based on evidence presented in the case, the court reportedly ruled out crypto speculation as an unreasonable excuse for the defendants. Instead, it considered the defendants’ subjective knowledge of their illegal forex trading activities. The court ultimately achieved a precise crackdown on new crypto-forex crimes and provided a reference for handling similar cases in the future.
The procuratorate also said it has established a targeted evidence collection plan that combines standardized review and technology empowerment. First, it entrusts its technical personnel to conduct technical collaboration and remotely examine the contents and paths of data retrieved from overseas by investigators. It then fully reproduces the entire evidence collection to ensure the legality and authenticity of the content collected.
Second, the procuratorate disclosed that it will adopt a complete coverage-typological evidence collection strategy to guide investigative agencies in optimizing evidence collection. The strategy will also strengthen the demonstration of the rationality and scientificity of the proportion of collected evidence. The procuratorate believes that this will resolve the dilemma of cross-border evidence collection, particularly for personnel-intensive or capital-intensive economic crimes.
Third, the review for special audit reports and other financial evidence was optimized. The procuratorate claimed to accurately identify each defendant and form a solid evidence system by verifying on-chain data. It emphasized that this laid a foundation for accurate conviction and sentencing, effectively solving the evidence collection problem in crypto crimes.
The BMP also stated that it will continue to intensify its efforts to penalize financial criminals in key areas and expand research into emerging financial crime patterns, among other initiatives. It vowed to strengthen the effectiveness of its legal supervision and promote collaborative efforts in combating crypto crimes.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/court-sends-five-to-prison-crypto-fraud/
