Chinese Prosecutors Close the Net on 40 Suspected Cyber Scammers

China is facing up to 40 crypto-scammers, with 10 of them already on trial.

Per Jimu NewsTen of the alleged fraudsters are currently being tried in the Enshi (Hubei Province Branch) branch of People’s Court for fraud charges.

According to the public prosecution agency, the “gang” of alleged fraudsters were active between 2020 and 2021.

According to the agency, Ma and Xie were the masterminds of the gang. According to the court, the two men “created” a fake crypto trading platform called FXcoin using high leverage rates and “high returns” as “bait”.

According to reports, the gang told victims that they could get huge returns from “buying” bitcoin (BTC).

A court heard that the gang paid small rebates to victims in order to “trick” them into increasing their stakes.

Chinese Prosecutors: 40 ‘Crypto Scammers’ in a Group. Split into ‘Sub-units.

Prosecutors also stated that the gang was split into three “sub-units.” These units eventually became independent of each other. Prosecutors claimed that the subunits collectively accumulated around $1.5million from victims.

Although the majority of the victims were Chinese-based, some foreign investors may have also fallen for this alleged scam. According to the court, victims were individuals based in Hainan and Jiangxi Provinces, the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and Myanmar.

The evidence provided by the prosecution included group chats on WeChat. It is also possible that the group used bogus apps and websites to appear to be legitimate crypto trading platforms.

For example, the group allegedly made fake websites to imitate the Japanese crypto exchange Zaif and Latin American trading platform Buda.

According to media outlets, each “sub-unit” is being tried independently because of “the large number of people involved” as well as “the complexity of this case.”

Police in Tongliao (Inner Mongolia) arrested 63 suspects last year for laundering $1.72 Billion worth of cryptoassets.