Qingdao police have cracked an underground bank case involving 15.8 billion yuan and arrested a currency exchange operator for illegal buying and selling of virtual currency.
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Qingdao police have cracked an underground bank case involving 15.8 billion yuan and arrested a currency exchange operator for illegal buying and selling of virtual currency.
According to CCTV News, police in Qingdao, Shandong Province, have jointly cracked a major underground bank case involving an amount as high as 15.8 billion yuan, spanning 17 provinces and municipalities across China, and have arrested currency exchangers engaged in illegal virtual currency trading. In November 2022, Qingdao police discovered highly unusual activity in over a thousand accounts linked to individuals including Jin Mou, with average daily transaction volumes exceeding three million yuan and total transaction amounts reaching more than 2 billion yuan. These accounts exhibited abnormal characteristics such as around-the-clock high-frequency operations and rapid inflows and outflows of large sums of money. All transactions were conducted via online banking or mobile banking platforms, with IP addresses traced overseas—despite the fact that the registered account holders had never left the country. Investigations revealed that only Jin's son had been residing abroad long-term, matching the locations from which the online operations originated, leading police to suspect that Jin was the actual controller of these accounts. Police found that most individuals transferring money into Jin’s controlled accounts had histories of studying abroad or frequent short-term border crossings. Additionally, his accounts showed financial transaction records with other accounts inside China suspected of being linked to underground banks. Authorities concluded that Jin was suspected of providing illegal foreign exchange services through the bank accounts under his control, as well as engaging in transactions with other domestic underground banks, constituting suspected illegal business operations. Investigators retrieved over 20 million suspicious bank transaction records related to Jin, revealing that his fund transactions exceeded 10 billion yuan, yet the account activities were extremely anomalous. By analyzing and cross-referencing the obtained bank statements, police discovered that large amounts of Jin’s funds were funneled into multiple bank accounts controlled by Li Mou within China—and these accounts showed deposits only, with no withdrawals. Li is the legal representative of a company...
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsTechFlow news, according to CCTV News, police in Qingdao, Shandong Province have jointly cracked a major underground bank case involving an amount as high as 15.8 billion yuan, spanning 17 provinces and municipalities across China, and arrested a cryptocurrency exchange dealer involved in illegal virtual currency trading.
In November 2022, Qingdao police discovered that accounts linked to an individual surnamed Jin and over a thousand associated accounts showed highly suspicious activity. The daily transaction volume averaged more than three million yuan, with total transactions exceeding 2 billion yuan. These large-scale funds exhibited abnormal patterns such as round-the-clock high-frequency operations, immediate inflows and outflows. All operations were conducted via online banking or mobile banking, with network operation locations traced overseas. However, the account holders themselves had never left the country. Investigations revealed that only Jin's son had been living abroad long-term, matching the overseas network operation locations—leading police to suspect that Jin was the actual controller of these accounts. Police found that most individuals transferring money into Jin’s controlled accounts had histories of overseas study or frequent short-term border crossings. Additionally, his related accounts showed fund transfers to other domestic accounts suspected of being linked to underground banks. Authorities concluded that Jin was suspected of providing illegal foreign exchange services using his controlled bank accounts, as well as engaging in transactions with other underground banks within China, constituting suspected illegal business operations. Investigators retrieved over 20 million suspicious bank transaction records linked to Jin, revealing fund transactions exceeding 10 billion yuan, yet the account behaviors were extremely irregular. Data comparison of the bank statements showed that large sums from Jin’s accounts were funneled into multiple bank accounts controlled by another individual, Li, inside China—with funds flowing only into these accounts and never out.
Li is an ordinary employee at a textile company in a county-level city, yet the third-party bank cards under her name handled transaction volumes exceeding 5 billion yuan—grossly inconsistent with her identity. Upon reviewing her transaction counterparts, investigators uncovered Li’s other role: she was actually a dealer specializing in illegal virtual currency trading. Li used an overseas virtual currency trading platform to help Jin convert substantial amounts of funds into virtual currencies such as Tether (USDT).
The underground banks collected RMB from their “clients,” then purchased virtual currencies, which were subsequently sold on overseas platforms to obtain needed foreign currencies—effectively completing RMB-to-foreign-currency conversion, thus committing illegal foreign exchange trading. Qingdao public security authorities seized virtual currencies including Tether and Litecoin worth approximately 2 million yuan at the scene. The case has now been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.
