The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate Release Landmark Case of "Concealment and Disguise of Criminal Proceeds through Virtual Currency and Other Means"

BlockBeats News, August 27, the Supreme People's Court of China and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly released typical cases of crimes involving the concealment and disguised proceeds of crime, and the gains from crime according to law, including the case of "An and others using virtual currency to conceal and disguise criminal proceeds."

From September to October 2020, the defendants An, Chen, and Guo conspired to transfer funds for others to make a profit through an online platform. An contacted criminals from a telecom fraud group (handled in a separate case) online and provided multiple bank accounts belonging to Guo to receive funds as per the criminals' instructions. Guo, after providing the bank account, registered and logged into a cryptocurrency exchange platform in his own name, while Chen operated the trading platform to transfer the funds received from others into Guo's bank account to purchase virtual currency. The virtual currency was then transferred to an account designated by the criminals, who paid commissions to An and others in proportion. An and others helped the criminals transfer a large amount of funds in the above-mentioned manner, including confirmed victims such as Tang, Zhu, Tong, who were collectively defrauded of more than 500,000 RMB.

The People's Procuratorate of Tongzhou District, Beijing, prosecuted An and the other two defendants for the crime of concealing and disguising criminal proceeds, and brought them to trial at the People's Court of Tongzhou District. After the trial, the Tongzhou District People's Court believed that based on the confessions of the three defendants and evidence extracted from the mobile phones involved in the case, such as chat records, it was sufficient to establish that the funds handled by the three defendants were known to be proceeds of crime. An and the other two defendants were aware that the funds were proceeds of another person's crime, and used virtual currency and other means to assist in the transfer of criminal funds, all of which constituted the crime of concealing and disguising criminal proceeds, with serious circumstances. An was sentenced to three years and three months in prison for the crime of concealing and disguising criminal proceeds and was fined 40,000 RMB; Chen was sentenced to three years and three months in prison and fined 40,000 RMB; Guo was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison and fined 30,000 RMB. The verdict is final with no appeal or protest, and the judgment has taken effect.