34 China Citizens Has Jailed for $64M Crypto Scam That Tricked 30,000 People

• A scam group created a crypto platform, OURBIT, for trading Digital Currency. They built a  professional site with fake features and manipulated trading data to make the platform appear legit.
• The scammers also posed as experts in investing, opening WeChat groups, posting fake profit screenshots and using planted members to confirm the legitimacy of the platform which further deceived victims to invest.
• The judge went on to warn people to be more skeptical of the kinds of investments they make, telling them to stay more alert and avoid falling for quick money investments.

Thirty-four individuals in Ezhou, China, have been charged for operating a fake crypto exchange that scammed nearly 30,000 victims of 460 million yuan (about $64 million) in one year.

The group carefully designed and executed the scheme using a newly created digital currency platform. During the trial, some claimed it was a legitimate investment and that users purposely took risks. 

Fake Trading Platform and The False Legitimacy Claims

The scammers created the OURBIT Digital Currency Trading Platform, claiming that it was registered in Singapore and had its financial licenses from the U.S. and U.K. 

In a bid to make it seem more legit, they built a professionally looking site with features like “zero slippage,” “new stop-profit and stop-loss functions,” with live price charts linked to Bitcoin while In reality, everything was fake. They also fabricated nine crypto trading pairs, manipulated crypto data, and made the scam platform seem like a real cryptocurrency exchange, even though it had no connection to the market.

The scammers also pretended to be investment teachers in different WeChat groups, posting fake profit screenshots to deceive their prey that they made a loss of money. They also put female members, known as “drags,” to agree and encourage others to join. Victims were lured into high-leverage trades, including Liang, who stated that he lost over 3 million yuan. He recalled that after an initial loss, he reinvested and saw small gains, but the platform freezed his account at some point.  

Apparently, when users made significant profits, the platform either locked their accounts or banned them completely. In some cases, the agents would persuade victims to invest more money so they could unlock their money. Others were told they needed to prove liquidity by making more additional deposits, which also disappeared.

Behind these so-called teachers was a very structured operation. The OURBIT team had dedicated product, technology, and even business departments. The business distributed fake trading accounts to agents, who went to recruit sub-agents to bring in more investors, with everyone earning a share of the previous victims’ loss. 

Court Ruling and Sentencing of The Crypto Scammers 

The Ezhou Court found Cheng and his 33 other accomplices guilty of fraud, with charges that they created the platform only to steal users’ money. The court stated that they deliberately deceived victims by continually coming up with fake information and hiding the truth for their illegal gain.

Sentences ranged from three to twelve years in prison, along with fines for all those who were involved. Due to the large number of defendants and the complexity of the case, the trials were handled separately, and all judgments are now final.

The judge warned the public against falling for suspicious “get-rich-quick” schemes. He urged people to be more cautious and avoid relying on investment advice from chat groups. 

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