According to ChainCatcher, the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court recently made a final ruling on a case involving illegal operation of virtual currency. The defendant He was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 5 million yuan by the Chongqing Yubei District People's Court for the crime of illegal operation because he illegally engaged in fund payment and settlement business on a virtual currency trading platform and earned profits from the price difference.
In early 2018, He registered as a "merchant" on a well-known virtual currency trading platform and began to engage in exchange transactions between virtual currency "USDT" and RMB. It is understood that in the self-selected trading area of the exchange, different merchants have different payment channels, transaction amounts and transaction prices. Among them, the price of purchasing "USDT" is mainly concentrated at around 6.85 yuan, while the price of selling "USDT" is mostly around 7 yuan. Later, Zheng expanded the scale of business, rented venues, recruited employees, and used the names of relatives and friends to register multiple accounts and open bank accounts, and conducted a large number of virtual currency and RMB exchange transactions on the virtual currency trading platform. The total amount of funds used by He for exchange business was as high as 609 million yuan. As of May 2019, the cumulative transaction flow of bank accounts controlled by He had reached more than 14 billion yuan, and his personal illegal profit was 4.77 million yuan. He used these illegally obtained funds to purchase real estate, invest in financial products, etc., trying to legalize it.
The People's Court of Yubei District, Chongqing, sentenced him to three years in prison and a fine of 5 million yuan for illegal business operations. He was not reconciled to this and chose to appeal to the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court, claiming that the exchange business between virtual currency and RMB did not constitute a fund payment and settlement behavior, and therefore did not constitute an illegal business operation. After trial, the Chongqing First Intermediate People's Court recently ruled to dismiss the appeal and uphold the original verdict.
