ChainCatcher news, the Chongqing Fifth Intermediate People's Court recently concluded an appeal case involving drug trafficking using a new method of "Internet + virtual currency + logistics mailing."From August 2021 to July 2023, the defendant Zhang contacted drug buyers through WeChat and other means, primarily selling marijuana and "stamps" and other types of drugs. Zhang entrusted the packaged drugs to a dedicated person for safekeeping, and after reaching a transaction intention with the drug buyer, provided the buyer with a virtual currency website. After confirming the receipt of drug funds via virtual currency, Zhang would place an order with a certain express delivery platform, and the drug custodian would deliver the drugs to the buyer through the express platform, while Zhang paid the drug custodian a fee.According to statistics, Zhang placed orders through the express platform and had the drug custodian deliver drugs a total of over 1,600 times; received funds through virtual currency accounts a total of over 1,200 times; and withdrew the received virtual currency to his Alipay, WeChat, and bank cards after multiple transfers, accumulating over 400,000 yuan.The Chongqing Fifth Intermediate Court, after legal review, found that the first-instance sentence of eight years imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 yuan for the defendant Zhang for the crimes of drug trafficking and money laundering was appropriate, and upheld the original judgment.

ChainCatcher news, according to Xinhua News Agency, the Chongqing Public Security Bureau's Liangjiang New Area Branch successfully solved a virtual currency theft case involving approximately 400,000 yuan, arresting three criminal suspects. The case began at the end of June 2024 when the Tian Gong Dian Police Station of the Liangjiang New Area Branch received a report from a technology company in the jurisdiction, stating that over 2.6 million BLAST tokens (a type of virtual currency) had been stolen from the company's account. The police quickly identified and arrested the suspects Yang, Wu, and Sheng by analyzing the transaction paths and the flow of funds.Upon investigation, it was found that all three suspects were former employees of the technology company. They took advantage of their positions to implant malicious code into the company's computers, stealing the company's virtual wallet address and private key passwords. On the evening of June 26, after the company's virtual wallet received BLAST tokens distributed by the game officials, the suspects immediately transferred the tokens to a pre-prepared wallet, and then proceeded to cash out and divide the spoils. Currently, the three suspects have been lawfully approved for arrest by the procuratorial authorities on suspicion of theft, and the case is under further investigation.

ChainCatcher news, recently, the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court made a final ruling on a case involving illegal operations of virtual currency. The defendant, He, was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 5 million yuan by the Chongqing Yubei District People's Court for illegally engaging in fund payment and settlement business on a virtual currency trading platform, profiting from the price difference.In early 2018, He registered as a "merchant" on a well-known virtual currency trading platform and began engaging in exchange transactions between the virtual currency "USDT" and the Chinese yuan. It is understood that in the exchange trading area of the exchange, different merchants have varying payment channels, transaction limits, and transaction prices. Among them, the purchase price of "USDT" mainly concentrated around 6.85 yuan, while the selling price of "USDT" was mostly around 7 yuan. Later, Zheng expanded the business scale, rented a venue, recruited employees, and registered multiple accounts and opened bank accounts in the names of relatives and friends, conducting a large number of virtual currency and Chinese yuan exchange transactions on the virtual currency trading platform. The total amount of funds He used for the exchange business reached 609 million yuan. As of May 2019, the cumulative transaction volume of the bank accounts controlled by He had exceeded 14 billion yuan, with his personal illegal profits amounting to 4.77 million yuan. He used these illegally obtained funds to purchase real estate, invest in financial products, etc., in an attempt to legalize them.The Chongqing Yubei District People's Court ruled against him for illegal business operations, sentencing him to three years in prison and imposing a fine of 5 million yuan. He was not willing to accept this and chose to appeal to the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court, claiming that the exchange business he engaged in between virtual currency and Chinese yuan did not constitute a fund payment and settlement behavior, and therefore did not constitute illegal business operations. After hearing the case, the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court recently ruled to dismiss the appeal and upheld the original judgment.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by The Paper, the People's Court of Chongqing Liangjiang New Area (Free Trade Zone) recently concluded a highly publicized entrusted contract dispute case, which involves a dispute over members of a pyramid scheme organization purchasing virtual currency. The plaintiff, Qin, entrusted the defendant, Zhou, to register as a member on the pyramid scheme organization's online platform and purchase virtual currency, with a total investment of 223,500 yuan. Later, the online platform of the pyramid scheme organization suddenly shut down, making transactions impossible. After hearing the case, the court determined that the entrusted contract violated mandatory provisions of national laws and administrative regulations and should be deemed invalid. Based on the degree of fault of both parties, the court ruled that the defendant Zhou should return 106,700 yuan to the plaintiff Qin. After the first-instance verdict, Zhou was dissatisfied and appealed. The Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court made a second-instance ruling, rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment. Currently, this judgment has taken effect and has been automatically executed.

ChainCatcher news, the Chongqing Tongliang Court concluded a case on October 24 involving the transfer of funds to overseas criminals, with an amount exceeding 2.25 billion yuan and 21 individuals sentenced. The defendants received USDT converted from the proceeds of crimes such as online fraud and online gambling committed by upstream criminals through offline BitPay wallets and other means, and then sold it on virtual currency trading platforms.It is reported that by fabricating excuses such as withdrawing project funds and migrant workers' wages, the gang members organized to withdraw cash at bank counters in multiple provinces and cities including Chongqing, Sichuan, and Shanghai, delivering the cash to designated recipients specified by the upstream. Each cash delivery ranged from 10 million to several tens of millions of yuan. By the time the case was uncovered, Jiang and others had transferred a total of over 2.25 billion yuan to overseas individuals in this manner, with total profits exceeding 22.62 million yuan.