Chinese Shanxi Court Uncovers USDT-related Fraud Case, Two Accomplices Sentenced Heavily

BlockBeats News, December 2, the Procuratorate of Wanbolin District, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China recently announced the first-instance verdict of the case of Chen and Li, who were charged with concealing and disguising criminal proceeds. The court adopted the sentencing recommendations of the procuratorial organ and sentenced the two individuals to two years and six months, and one year and six months of imprisonment, respectively, along with fines.

In May this year, Ms. Zhang met "Lin Hao" (at large) on a short video platform. "Lin Hao" falsely claimed to be a comrade-in-arms working for a well-known company, holding insider information on the company's stock price movements. He claimed that he could register an account on the company's internal website to "buy high" and profit (alleging a 5% return each period), but the transaction had to be conducted in US dollars. Moreover, it required exchanging cash for dollars with a designated merchant, then transferring it to his comrade-in-arms' dollar account, from where it would be transferred to the company's account.

On May 21, following "Lin Hao's" instructions, Ms. Zhang carried 1.47 million RMB in cash to a hotel in Wanbolin District to exchange for US dollars. Acting on orders from their superior, Chen and Li went to meet Ms. Zhang. Ms. Zhang forwarded the US dollar account provided by "Lin Hao" (actually a scammer's Tether account) to the superior through Chen, who then transferred 202,328 USDT (equivalent to about 1.47 million RMB) to that account in three installments. Chen and Li then received the 1.47 million RMB in cash from Ms. Zhang and handed it over to their superior. However, "Lin Hao" did not transfer the money to Ms. Zhang's account as agreed, prompting her to report the scam to the police.

The prosecuting attorney immediately reviewed the case files and consulted with the investigators, proposing a core investigative direction regarding the behavior of the suspects Chen and Li: obtain chat records to establish evidence that the two were "well aware of the abnormality of the funds"; clarify the fund flow route, trace the ultimate flow of USDT through the virtual currency trading platform data, and verify their objective participation in transferring the criminal proceeds. After investigation, the public security organ transferred the case to the Procuratorate of Wanbolin District on August 17.

After examination, the Procuratorate found that both Chen and Li confessed that they "knew the fund operations were too secretive, and it involved a large amount of cash transactions, which certainly raised suspicions." The two individuals received a bribe of 30,000 RMB afterward, which was sufficient to establish that they were well aware that the funds were proceeds of crime; their assistance in completing the "cash to USD to USDT" cross-border conversion constituted an act of "concealing and disguising criminal proceeds."

After the verdict, the Procuratorate issued a risk alert letter to relevant units, outlined the typical characteristics of "investment scams + virtual currency money laundering," and conducted anti-fraud education campaigns in collaboration with the Anti-Fraud Center and other relevant units. Sun Yinpeng, the Chief Prosecutor of Wanbolin District Procuratorate, stated that regarding new types of telecommunications network-related crimes, the Procuratorate will continue to deepen the "investigation-prosecution coordination + precise prosecution + social governance" mechanism, cracking down on both fraudulent crimes and severely punishing criminal "accomplices" to fully safeguard public property security. (Net of Justice)