According to BlockBeats, the police in Qingdao, China, are gearing up to take a deep dive into a rather tangled case of cybercrime involving the crypto stablecoin USDT. They’ve got nine suspects in their net and a staggering 8 million yuan swirling around in this mess.
The Qingdao Case: A Timeline of Events
The report shows that it all started back in February when the eagle-eyed officers at the Madian Police Station of the Jiaozhou Public Security Bureau got wind that a fugitive suspect, Xue, who was knee-deep in telecom fraud, had popped back up in Jiaozhou.
By February 24, they’d nabbed Xue and unearthed some rather fishy messages on his phone, hinting at a dubious partnership with another individual.
It turned out that Xue had been using his connections to set up companies and open public accounts, which he then passed off to this partner in crime. These accounts often carried names with the innocent-sounding term ‘study abroad,’ and Xue was promised a pretty penny for his trouble.
The USDT Trail
Sensing that Xue’s hands were dirtier than they’d initially thought, the police rallied a special task force to peel back the layers of this operation. They dug into the transfer records peppered with ‘study abroad’ and found that business licenses had been used to open these public accounts, which were then employed to buy USDT—a digital currency that’s become the darling of money launderers everywhere.
The investigation into USDT brought them to Xue’s partner, Kuang, who was quickly taken into custody on February 26. Once he was behind bars, Kuang didn’t hold back—he revealed that he had been working closely with two others, Sun and Sui, to help criminals.
The Modus Operandi: How the Criminals Operated
Kuang admitted that he hardly ever saw Sun and Sui face-to-face; their communication was mostly confined to the digital realm. The previous September, Sun had dangled a quick-and-dirty money-making scheme in front of Kuang involving the opening of public accounts for the purpose of laundering illicit funds.
At first, Kuang was hesitant about the whole idea, but the promise of quick cash was just too hard to resist, so he eventually gave in. He then brought Xue and Sui on board with his scheme. As the demand for more public accounts increased, Kuang turned to his friends for assistance, helping him secure business licenses and public accounts by using other people’s ID documents.
By November 2023, Kuang and Sun were fully operational, using their accounts to channel illicit funds and manage them as necessary. Sun was the brains behind the money transfers, while Kuang took care of sending the cash to Sui, who then converted it into USDT. After taking their cuts, the trio funneled the laundered funds back to their higher-ups in the form of USDT.
The Arrests: Bringing the Perpetrators to Justice
The task force wasted no time and quickly found Sun and Sui, who immediately admitted to everything once they were in custody. After four months of thorough investigation, they wrapped things up by arresting six additional individuals involved in the shady business of trading national documents.
Sun shed some light on the complexities of their operation, detailing how the money laundering process involved buying USDT and returning it to their bosses. The commission rates were established at 6% for Sun, 5% for Kuang, and a portion for Sui. By the time they were apprehended, the three of them had funneled over 8 million yuan in USDT through their illicit operations.
Now, nine individuals are staring down the barrel of criminal charges and are on the brink of prosecution. The police have issued a stern warning to the public: Don’t lend your identification documents, bank cards, or public accounts to others, or you might just find yourself caught up in something far more sinister than you’d ever imagined.
