Can you make huge profits by speculating in Bitcoin overseas? A man in Guangzhou was defrauded of more than 3.1 million yuan

■Some of the seized bank cards.

Baiyun police cracked down on a new type of telecom fraud "money laundering" gang and called on people not to trust the "good news" in investment WeChat groups

Making profits by speculating in Bitcoin overseas may be a "project" that many people who are keen on investing have heard of. However, Mr. Xie from Baiyun District, Guangzhou City believed in this "project" and lost more than 3.1 million yuan! Recently, during the in-depth implementation of the "Hurricane 2020" special operation, the Baiyun police in Guangzhou discovered and cracked down on a gang that used the "running point" platform to conduct digital currency transactions and "launder money" for telecommunications fraud. Nine suspects involved in the case were arrested and a batch of items involved in the case, such as mobile phones and bank cards, were seized.

The background of the "investment platform" can control the rise and fall

The story started with the "good news" in the investment WeChat group that was difficult to distinguish true from false. At the end of 2019, Mr. Xie from Baiyun District, Guangzhou was attracted by the "project" about overseas Bitcoin speculation in the WeChat group. Under the guidance of the message publisher, he successfully registered and opened an account on a platform called "Mouqi" to invest. After a few months, from the initial super high "returns" to the cliff-like continuous losses, and the account balance could not be withdrawn, he lost a total of more than RMB 3.1 million.

Coincidentally, Mr. Cao from Huadu District and Ms. Wen from Haizhu District also invested in this platform and lost more than RMB 630,000 and RMB 120,000 respectively. The victims who woke up from the dream of "high returns" suspected that they had encountered telecommunications network fraud, so they reported the case to the police.

After receiving the report, Guangzhou Baiyun police immediately formed a special task force to conduct a full investigation. The police found that this fraud gang lured the victims to register for the so-called "investment platform" they set up in advance by recommending investment, and then controlled the rise and fall of the price in the background, and induced the victims to make additional investments through "talking skills". At the same time, they colluded with multiple "money laundering" gangs, quickly divided the victims' investment funds into several tranches, and circulated them through various methods such as digital currency trading, in order to confuse the police and hide the true destination of the funds.

In "running points" mode

Trading digital currency for money laundering

By tracing the whereabouts of the large amount of funds transferred by Mr. Xie to the "platform", Baiyun police successfully cracked down on a criminal gang that "laundered money" for telecommunications fraud in Jieyang, Shanwei, Foshan in Guangdong and Zengcheng in Guangzhou at the end of April, arrested all 12 suspects of the gang, and seized a batch of computers, mobile phones, bank cards and other items involved in the case.

After destroying the gang, the police did not stop there, but linked multiple cases together, continued to follow the flow of funds to dig deep for clues, and went upstream to try to find the ultimate mastermind. Through further detailed analysis and judgment of massive data, the police found that the transaction status of one of the fund transfer accounts was very suspicious and was related to multiple fraudulent funds involved in the case.

After in-depth investigation and verification, the police gradually found out a "money laundering" gang headed by Zhang Mouye (male, 35 years old, from Heilongjiang) and Jin Mouzhe (male, 45 years old, from Jilin). At the same time, the police found that the members of this gang had frequently traveled abroad in 2019. This year, due to the epidemic, they have been in China, contacted telecommunications fraud criminals hiding abroad through overseas social applications, and traded digital currencies in the "running points" mode to "launder money."

In July this year, police officers from the Baiyun police task force went to Shenzhen and, with the strong assistance of the local police, successfully arrested 9 suspects involved in the case, including Zhang Mouye, seized 25 mobile phones, 120 bank cards and other items involved in the case, froze funds of more than RMB 1 million, and successfully cracked down on this higher-level "money laundering" gang.

Unveiling the frontier "money laundering" model

Baiyun police said that the successful arrest of this criminal gang was also an exploration and breakthrough for Baiyun police. After several years of development, digital currency has become highly liquid, its foreign exchange trend is stable, and after purchase, it can be traded across platforms and across borders without limits, so it is easily favored by "money laundering" criminals.

It is reported that the "money laundering" gang that was busted this time is different from the general digital currency trading. It belongs to the more advanced "running points" model in the current gray and black industry chain of telecommunications network fraud crimes. The "running points" platform is a new "money laundering" channel in recent years. After setting up the platform, criminals recruit users and operate funds in batches by issuing tasks and paying a certain commission.

Baiyun police interrogated Zhang Mouye and others, combined with investigation and evidence collection, and basically restored the entire method and process of committing the crime: Telecom fraud criminals hiding abroad connected the fake "investment platform" with the "running point" platform, and the victim's funds directly entered the "running point" platform. Zhang Mouye and others used a large number of bank cards that were not in their own names to purchase USDT (Tether) on various digital currency trading platforms, and then "moved" it to the "running point" platform for fund transactions, repeating the process of "money" to "coin" and "coin" to "money" many times. After each digital currency transaction was successful, they earned a handling fee of 0.05 yuan/USDT. In addition, they also used the "running point" platform to directly use bank card transfer payments to transfer funds, charging a handling fee of 0.1%. In just one month, the amount of money transferred could reach up to RMB 70 million, with a profit of nearly RMB 100,000.

At present, all suspects involved in the case have been detained by the police in accordance with the law. The police remind investors to keep their eyes open and be wary of so-called high-yield investments, stock recommendations, insider information, etc. on the Internet. (NetEase News)