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

On December 2, the Wanbailin District Procuratorate of Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China recently pronounced a first-instance judgment on the case of Chen and Li, who were prosecuted for concealing and hiding criminal proceeds. The court adopted the sentencing recommendations of the procuratorial authorities, sentencing the two to two years and six months and one year and six months in prison, respectively, along with fines. In May of this year, Ms. Zhang met “Lin Hao” (, who has not yet been captured ), on a short video platform. “Lin Hao” falsely claimed that his comrade worked for a well-known company and possessed information about the company's stock rise and fall, stating that profits could be made by signing up for an account on the company's internal website to “buy long” (, promising a return of 5% for each period ), but requiring transactions to be in USD and needing to convert cash into USD with designated merchants before transferring it to his comrade's USD account, which would then be transferred into the company's account. On May 21, following “Lin Hao”'s instructions, Ms. Zhang brought 1.47 million yuan in cash to a hotel in Wanbailin District to prepare for the USD exchange. Under the direction of their superior, Chen and Li went to meet Ms. Zhang. Ms. Zhang forwarded the USD account provided by “Lin Hao” (, which was actually a Tether account of the fraudsters ), through Chen to their superior, who transferred a total of 202328 Tether (, equivalent to about 1.47 million yuan ), to that account in three installments. Later, Chen and Li handed over the 1.47 million yuan in cash they received from Ms. Zhang to their superior. However, “Lin Hao” failed to transfer the funds into the account Ms. Zhang had opened with the company as agreed. After realizing she had been defrauded, Ms. Zhang reported it to the police. The prosecuting attorney reviewed the case immediately and consulted with investigators, proposing the core investigative direction regarding the actions of suspects Chen and Li: to retrieve chat records to secure evidence of their “awareness of the abnormal funds”; to clarify the flow of funds, tracing the final destination of the Tether through data from virtual currency trading platforms, confirming their objective fact of assisting in the transfer of criminal proceeds. After investigation, the Public Security Bureau transferred the case to the Wanbailin District Procuratorate for examination and prosecution on August 17. Upon review, the procuratorate concluded that both Chen and Li confessed to “knowing that the fund operations were too concealed and that it involved large cash transactions, which definitely had problems” and that the two received 30,000 yuan in benefits afterward, which was sufficient to establish that they knew the funds were criminal proceeds; their actions assisting in the “cash → USD → Tether” cross-border conversion were categorized as “concealing and hiding criminal proceeds”. After the ruling, the procuratorate issued a risk warning letter to relevant units, outlining the typical characteristics of “investment scams + virtual currency money laundering”, and jointly conducted anti-fraud publicity activities with the anti-fraud center and other relevant units. Sun Yinping, the chief procurator of the Wanbailin District Procuratorate, stated that in response to new types of telecom network fraud-related crimes, the procuratorate will continue to deepen the “investigation-prosecution coordination + precise prosecution + social governance” mechanism, both cracking down on fraud crimes and severely punishing “accomplices”, fully protecting the property safety of the people. (Justice Network)