China appears to be bolstering its ban on crypto, taking stringent action against individuals and projects involved with the space.
According to new reports, the Fuzhou Mawei People’s Procuratorate has convicted a person, identified as Mr. Chen, for purchasing 94,988 Chinese Yuan worth of Tether ($USDT) for an acquaintance.
At the time of press, the amount was worth $13,067. The individual in question was charged for the “offence of concealment and concealment of crime”.
As reported by local news, Mr. Chen provided his bank card details to his acquaintance Mr. Lin to buy and sell virtual coins and earn commissions from it. It happened back in February 2022 when the former ended up posting his bank card details on social media app WeChat.
Seven fiat Chinese Yuan transfers were made from Mr. Lin to Mr. Chen in a bank flow of 99,609 Yuan. Mr Chen subsequently used it to purchase $USDT and the stablecoins were then sent back to Mr. Lin.
In doing the same, Mr. Chen earned a total commission of 147.1 Chinese Yuan ($20.26). Fuzhou Mawei People’s Procuratorate commented on the case saying: “Con artists use virtual currency to transfer and launder stolen money. This kind of online money laundering in the name of purchasing virtual currency, knowing that others use the information network to commit crimes and providing assistance to them has violated the law.”
Mr. Chen has now been sentenced to nine months in prison, deferred for one year, and fined 5,000 Yuan.
Since the beginning of this year, Chinese authorities have been stringent in its crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
In a press conference last week, political commissar of the Network Security Bureau, Jinfeng Sun, said there had been a spree of incidents involving the use of Trojan viruses, phishing sites, infiltration tools and cyberstalkers in fraud and data theft. Linking technologies such as blockchain and AI with the same, he said that the Ministry will “strike hard at such methods” as they research their use.
The Chinese police also shut the $1.5billion cross-chain Multichain protocol after the arrest of its CEO Zhaojun. In its announcement, the protocol said that the local police took over the custody of investor funds and project funds directly managed by the CEO.
Due to the same, the team was unable to repair technical issues after his arrest since only Zhaojun’s personal server had the access to project nodes and all operations funds.
Interestingly, funds belonging to Multichain developers and users have been mysteriously converted to stablecoins and privacy coins since the arrest. They have been bridged out of the protocol too without any explanation.
