“Boss, does your store support digital RMB? I want to exchange some cash and am willing to pay a handling fee.” In mid-September 2023, Yuan, Zhang, and Kou appeared on the streets of Shaoxing, inquiring in multiple places to find merchants willing to cash out using digital RMB. A few days later, the public security authorities received a report and discovered abnormal fund flows in multiple merchants' digital RMB accounts in the area, quickly identifying and capturing the suspects Yuan and two others.
What is going on here? The story needs to start from earlier. At the end of August 2023, Yuan, who had come out to work from his hometown, could not find suitable work after traveling to multiple places. One day, bored and scrolling through short videos in a hotel, he saw someone posting a part-time job ad and took the initiative to contact them.
“As long as I find a merchant that supports digital RMB for cashing out, I will give you a commission of 0.8% of the cashing amount.” Yuan, feeling excited, immediately followed the instructions from his contact, found a merchant near the hotel to cash out, and successfully received the commission.
After several operations, Yuan had become 'skilled' at it. He lured merchants with digital RMB accounts through shopping and casual chatting. After the merchants agreed to cash out, he would convert a certain amount of his money into virtual currency as a deposit to transfer to his contact, then send the digital RMB payment code to his contact. Once the fraudulent funds entered the merchant's digital RMB account, the merchant would deduct a handling fee ranging from 1% to 1.5%, allowing Yuan to withdraw the corresponding cash amount.
In the operations, the amount Yuan cashed out would be higher than the amount he deposited with his contact, and the difference would be the commission given to Yuan. The cash withdrawn would be used as a deposit for the next cashout.
“I didn't expect the money to come so quickly; doing it alone is too slow.” In order to make more money, Yuan, although aware that the source of his contact’s money was suspicious, could not resist the temptation of profit. He brought along his girlfriend Zhang and friend Kou, promising them a benefit fee of 50 yuan for every 10,000 yuan they cashed out, to earn the price difference.
Due to the limited number of stores supporting digital RMB payments, frequent operations were easily detected. To avoid detection by public security authorities, Yuan and others used niche overseas chat tools to contact their accomplices. Since early September, they traveled between Shaoxing, Jinhua, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing, and after successful cashouts, they drove to new locations to launder the money obtained from scams.
“Digital RMB payment transactions are highly private, and overseas fraud groups exploit this feature to buy some merchants' digital RMB accounts for money laundering.” During questioning, Yuan voluntarily confessed, “I now deeply regret doing such a foolish thing and have already returned all the stolen money.”
Recently, the People's Procuratorate of Yuecheng District filed a public prosecution, and the court sentenced Yuan, Zhang, and Kou to prison terms ranging from one year and four months to seven months for concealing and hiding criminal proceeds, along with fines.
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