This was once a very controversial news. Whether virtual currency is property protected by the criminal law and whether stealing virtual currency can be classified as theft has caused widespread discussion. Let's see what happened:

At the beginning of 2019, Ling Yuesheng (pseudonym), a 30-year-old man, was unemployed in a temporary residence in Yuncheng District, Yunfu City, Guangdong Province. With only primary school education, he wanted to "take advantage of the situation" through his mobile phone, so he searched on Baidu for instructions on how to crack network request packets and invade computer information systems.

Later, Ling Yuesheng found a way to tamper with the data in the network request packet, and told this method to his fellow villager Ling Shishan (pseudonym), who also had primary school education. Since then, the two have been trying to hack into a digital asset trading platform system maintained by a Beijing information technology company.

"I used the mouse to grab the data on the page, clicked around, and finally found the loophole." Ling Shishan confessed. In October 2020, Ling Shishan discovered the transfer loophole of the system when using Ling Yuesheng's account. He used a packet capture software to capture data on the platform, and then manually added a "-" sign to the beginning of the captured data and sent it to the platform, and he could see the increase of virtual currency in his wallet account on the platform.

According to the report materials and system background logs of a Beijing information technology company, on October 16, 2019, Ling Yuesheng registered an account on the above platform and tried to attack the system it maintained, and successfully hacked into the system at 4 am on October 15, 2020. Later, he registered Ling Shishan's real-name account and successfully hacked into the system. He then registered 17 real-name accounts and used the devices of the two people to log in in turn to attack system vulnerabilities, and withdrew cash after success.

Between 2:00 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. on the 16th, the two stole a total of 620,000 Tethers, 12,687.9956 Ethereums, and 149.99627927 Bitcoins. Ling Yuesheng put the private key of the stolen virtual currency in a gold Apple phone and kept it in the safe at his cousin's temporary residence. In addition, the two cashed out a total of about 2 million yuan, which was used to buy a BMW car and other expenses.

According to the testimony of Tian, ​​the legal representative of the above-mentioned information technology company, at 9 am on the 16th, the company's platform maintenance personnel discovered that the platform they served had an abnormally large withdrawal. At that time, the price of Tether was about RMB 6.7 per coin, the price of Ethereum was about RMB 2,500 per coin, and the price of Bitcoin was about RMB 79,000 per coin. "Our company was commissioned by XX Global XX Ltd. to provide system development, maintenance and technical consulting services for a digital asset trading platform. According to the technical service contract signed between our company and the company, our company must pay the other company RMB 50.2597 million in accordance with the agreement for this system intrusion incident."

After discovering the vulnerability, the information technology company repaired it, and then Tian reported the case to the public security authorities and locked Ling Yuesheng and Ling Shishan through the company log. Tian also said that in order to fix the system vulnerability, the company also hired a third party to perform security repairs on the system, which cost 200,000 yuan.

On October 21, the public security organs arrested Ling 1 and Ling 2. The police seized a silver Apple laptop from Ling 1's temporary residence and a white Redmi phone from him. A gold Meizu phone and a blue VIVO phone were seized from Ling 2. A gold Apple phone and RMB 100,000 were seized from the safe deposit box that Ling 1 left at Rao's place and are now under custody.

After being arrested, Ling 1 and Ling 2 cooperated with the public security organs to return the virtual currency that had not been sold, with a total transaction value of more than RMB 48 million. Wan sold the BMW car purchased with the stolen money and returned the proceeds of RMB 700,000 to Beijing XX Information Technology Co., Ltd.

The Court’s ruling:
1. Defendant Ling 1 was convicted of theft and sentenced to 12 years in prison, a fine of RMB 200,000, and deprivation of political rights for two years.
2. Defendant Ling 2 was convicted of theft and sentenced to 12 years in prison, a fine of RMB 200,000, and deprivation of political rights for two years.
3. Continue to recover the illegal gains of RMB 1,349,337 from the defendants Ling 1 and Ling 2 and return them to Beijing XX Information Technology Co., Ltd.
4. The RMB 100,000 seized in the case and the discounted price of a Meizu mobile phone shall be used to execute the third item of the main text of the judgment.
5. The silver Apple laptop, white Redmi mobile phone, gold Apple mobile phone, and blue VIVO mobile phone seized in the case shall be confiscated.

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