Beijing Procuratorate Discloses Case of Using Virtual Currency for Offshore Foreign Exchange Transactions: Involved Amount Exceeds 1.1 Billion RMB

BlockBeats News, October 29th. According to 21st Century Business Herald, the People's Procuratorate of Beijing Municipality has released a major document titled "Highly Effective Performance of Financial Inspection Typical Cases," which includes a case of using virtual currency to engage in disguised foreign exchange transactions involving over 1.1 billion RMB.

It was found that from January to August 2023, Lin A, acting on instructions from others, conspired with Lin B, Xia XX, Bao XX, and Chen XX to use multiple bank cards under their names to receive a large amount of funds transferred by clients (such as Liu XX) of an illegal foreign exchange organization's "upstream." The group used virtual currency as a "bridge" to achieve the illegal cross-border transfer of funds: Lin A and others used multiple Tether (USDT) trading platform accounts under their control to convert the received RMB into USDT, then completed the cross-border fund transfer through platform trading, effectively engaging in disguised foreign exchange transactions and profiting from it. According to the report, the total amount of their illegal business operations reached over 1.182 billion RMB, with Xia XX, Bao XX, and the other 5 members participating in amounts ranging from over 149 million to over 469 million RMB.

On March 21, 2025, the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing, issued a first-instance judgment, sentencing the 5 defendants to imprisonment for two to four years for the crime of illegal business operations, along with corresponding fines. Currently, all defendants have pleaded guilty, have not appealed, and the judgment has taken legal effect.