In Beijing, prosecutors have jailed eight individuals for working a year‑long Bitcoin scam that drained over 140 million yuan—round $20 million—from a brief‐video platform after which funneled the money into crypto.
In keeping with a White Paper launched by the Folks’s Procuratorate of Haidian District, the case ranks among the many most advanced anti‑corruption instances dealt with between 2020 and 2024. What started as easy bonus approvals inside the corporate became a yr‑lengthy scheme that hid stolen funds behind shell companies and digital currencies.
Insider Energy Opened Loopholes
Primarily based on reports, an worker named Feng held sole management over service‑supplier onboarding, bonus {qualifications} and payout approvals.
He quietly tweaked bonus insurance policies to create gaps that solely he and two outdoors helpers, Tang and Yang, may exploit. Faux paperwork flowed in with non-public knowledge that Feng leaked.
Then the trio rerouted bonus funds into made‑up accounts, as an alternative of rewarding actual work. By the point auditors noticed the lacking money, practically 140 million yuan had already vanished.
Faux Corporations And Laundering Chain
The gang used shell companies with no actual operations. Yang directed affiliate Wang and others to arrange round 10 of those paper companies.
All they did was gather the bogus bonus payouts. From there, funds jumped throughout a number of financial institution accounts till they landed in Yang’s palms. Feng then ordered the subsequent step: changing it into Bitcoin.
They break up the loot on eight totally different worldwide platforms and combined the cash, scrambling the transaction path to cover the cash’s origin.
Authorities Hint Bitcoin Circulate
Prosecutor Li Tao, of Haidian’s Science and Know-how Crime division, constructed an in depth map of the rip-off. By evaluating firm knowledge logs, financial institution information and blockchain transfers, his crew peeled again every layer of concealment.
They even recovered over 90 Bitcoin through the investigation—sufficient to show precisely how the “closed‑loop” laundering chain labored. Every recovered coin tied again to the stolen rewards, confirming each twist of the cash’s path.
Sentencing took under consideration every particular person’s position. Feng obtained the longest time period—14 years and 6 months behind bars—whereas the opposite seven had been handed jail sentences starting from three to 14 years, plus hefty fines.
All had been discovered responsible of occupational embezzlement. This case serves as a warning: when one particular person holds an excessive amount of energy, even routine bonus techniques can turn into automobiles for giant fraud—and fashionable crypto instruments can’t assure anonymity ceaselessly.
Featured picture from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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