China has been grappling with serious cryptocurrency scams of late. In yet another case, a Chinese court has sentenced 34 people for defrauding over 30,000 victims in a 460 million Yuan crypto scam.
China’s 460 Million Yuan Crypto Scam
The Ezhou Court in China has successfully concluded two crypto online fraud cases involving a gang consisting of 34 defendants. The accused were found guilty of carefully plotting and carrying out fraud with the help of a new virtual currency trading platform. In just one year, nearly 30,000 people were defrauded, and the amount drained was 460 million yuan. During the trial of the case, some defendants argued that this was an investment transaction and that the “customers” voluntarily gambled with the platform.
The accused had set up the “OURBIT Digital Currency Trading Platform” (OURBIT Platform), claiming to be registered in Singapore. They also claimed to hold US and UK financial licenses and released promotional gimmicks such as new stop-profit and stop-loss features, and a first transaction with 0 slippage. As per local reports, the gang faked trading K-line charts based on the Bitcoin market trading prices, forged 9 cryptocurrency transactions, and created a professional and compliant platform image to attract investors.
The fraudsters were also found guilty of disguising themselves as investment ‘teachers’ in active WeChat groups, frequently posting profit screenshots, forging an impression of easy profit, and inducing victims to participate in high-leverage investments.
The local investigation revealed that the Orbit platform was a closed user platform gambling market with no connection to external or international markets. It manipulates data, sets slippage, creates pins, conducts market-making transactions, simulates accounts, and promotes high-leverage trades, increasing customer losses and boosting the platform’s win rate.
The report suggested that for a few customers with large profits, the platform and agents colluded to lock accounts, pressured for more investment, or banned them, causing customers to lose all their money.
Liang, who lost over 3 million yuan, said, “At first, the account was liquidated and lost money. After additional investment, there was a slight profit, but the platform frequently froze, and after recovery, it started to lose money again. There was also a direct liquidation due to pins.”
