The Shanxi court in China has cracked a USDT fraud case, with two accomplices receiving heavy sentences.

BlockBeats news, on December 2, the Wanfanglin District Prosecutor's Office in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China recently pronounced the first-instance verdict on the case of Chen and Li, who were prosecuted for concealing and hiding criminal proceeds. The court accepted the sentencing suggestions from the prosecution and sentenced the two to two years and six months, and one year and six months of imprisonment respectively, along with fines. In May this year, Ms. Zhang met “Lin Hao” (who has not been apprehended) on a short video platform. “Lin Hao” falsely claimed that his comrade worked for a well-known company and had access to information on the company's stock rise and fall, claiming that one could sign up for an account on the company's internal website to “buy long” and profit (claiming a 5% return per period), but it required USD transactions, and cash had to be exchanged for USD with designated merchants before being transferred to his comrade's USD account, which would then be transferred to the company's account. On May 21, Ms. Zhang followed “Lin Hao”'s instructions and brought 1.47 million yuan in cash to a hotel in Wanfanglin District to prepare for exchanging for USD. Following instructions from the upper-level, Chen and Li went to connect with Ms. Zhang. Ms. Zhang forwarded the USD account provided by “Lin Hao” (which was actually the scammer's USD account) to the upper-level through Chen, who then transferred a total of 202,328 USD (approximately 1.47 million yuan) to that account in three installments. Subsequently, Chen and Li handed over the 1.47 million yuan in cash received from Ms. Zhang to the upper-level. However, “Lin Hao” failed to transfer the funds to the account Ms. Zhang had opened with the company as agreed, and upon realizing she had been scammed, Ms. Zhang reported to the police. The prosecuting officer reviewed the case files immediately and consulted with investigators, proposing the core investigative direction regarding the actions of suspects Chen and Li: to collect chat records to secure evidence that the two “knew the funds were abnormal”; to clarify the flow of funds, tracing the final destination of the USD through data from virtual currency trading platforms, and confirming the objective fact that they assisted in transferring criminal proceeds. After investigation, the public security organs transferred the case to the Wanfanglin District Prosecutor's Office for review and prosecution on August 17. After examination, the office found that Chen and Li both stated they “knew the fund operations were too concealed, and it was a large cash transaction, which definitely had problems,” and that the two received a benefit fee of 30,000 yuan afterwards, which was enough to establish that they were aware it was criminal proceeds; their behavior in assisting with the “cash → USD → USD” cross-border conversion constituted the act of “concealing and hiding criminal proceeds.” After the verdict, the office issued a risk warning letter to relevant units, outlining the typical characteristics of “investment scams + virtual currency money laundering,” and jointly carried out anti-fraud publicity activities with anti-fraud centers and other relevant units. Sun Yinping, the chief prosecutor of the Wanfanglin District Prosecutor's Office, stated that in response to new types of telecom network fraud-related crimes, the office will continue to deepen the “investigation-prosecution collaboration + precise prosecution + social governance” mechanism, aiming to combat fraud crimes while severely punishing criminal “accomplices,” fully protecting the property safety of the public. (Justice Network)