How A $20-M Employee Heist Crashed Into Prison Time

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In Beijing, prosecutors have jailed eight folks for operating a year‑long Bitcoin scam that drained over 140 million yuan—round $20 million—from a brief‐video platform after which funneled the money into crypto.

In response to a White Paper launched by the Folks’s Procuratorate of Haidian District, the case ranks among the many most complicated anti‑corruption circumstances dealt with between 2020 and 2024. What started as easy bonus approvals inside the corporate became a 12 months‑lengthy scheme that hid stolen funds behind shell companies and digital currencies.

Insider Energy Opened Loopholes

Based mostly on reports, an worker named Feng held sole management over service‑supplier onboarding, bonus {qualifications} and payout approvals.

He quietly tweaked bonus insurance policies to create gaps that solely he and two exterior helpers, Tang and Yang, might exploit. Faux paperwork flowed in with non-public information that Feng leaked.

Then the trio rerouted bonus funds into made‑up accounts, as an alternative of rewarding actual work. By the point auditors noticed the lacking money, almost 140 million yuan had already vanished.

Faux Corporations And Laundering Chain

The gang used shell companies with no actual operations. Yang directed affiliate Wang and others to arrange round 10 of those paper companies.

All they did was accumulate the bogus bonus payouts. From there, funds jumped throughout a number of financial institution accounts till they landed in Yang’s fingers. Feng then ordered the subsequent step: changing it into Bitcoin.

They cut up the loot on eight totally different worldwide platforms and blended the cash, scrambling the transaction path to cover the cash’s origin.

Authorities Hint Bitcoin Circulate

Prosecutor Li Tao, of Haidian’s Science and Expertise Crime division, constructed an in depth map of the rip-off. By evaluating firm information logs, financial institution information and blockchain transfers, his staff peeled again every layer of concealment.

They even recovered over 90 Bitcoin in the course of the investigation—sufficient to show precisely how the “closed‑loop” laundering chain labored. Every recovered coin tied again to the stolen rewards, confirming each twist of the cash’s path.

Sentencing took under consideration every individual’s position. Feng acquired the longest time period—14 years and 6 months behind bars—whereas the opposite seven have been handed jail sentences starting from three to 14 years, plus hefty fines.

All have been discovered responsible of occupational embezzlement. This case serves as a warning: when one individual holds an excessive amount of energy, even routine bonus methods can turn out to be autos for giant fraud—and trendy crypto instruments can’t assure anonymity eternally.

Featured picture from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

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