It is hard to tell the difference between real and fake virtual currency trading platforms: they are all illegal

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Which of these shopping projects, which netizens jokingly call the top ten "painful" shopping projects in 2021 , have you done?

However, the Internet police have discovered that there is another thing that will make you "painful". If you are not careful, you will lose all your money. The most important thing is that this thing is illegal, that is - virtual currency.

In July this year, Mr. Zhu (pseudonym) from Hangzhou thought he had been conducting legitimate transactions on a well-known foreign digital currency trading platform.

What he didn't expect was that this platform was actually a copycat. His investment became "for nothing", and he lost a total of 470,000 yuan.

What's going on? Let's take a look together!

You thought it was a tutorial post, but it was actually a scammer's trick to attract traffic

One day in early July, Mr. Zhu saw a short video about virtual currency speculation while browsing Douyin.

The investment logic mentioned in the video convinced Mr. Zhu and aroused his desire to invest, so he left a message under the video to ask related questions.

Not long after, Mr. A sent a private message to Mr. Zhu, saying that he could communicate with him and discuss the market situation in the cryptocurrency circle.

When Mr. Zhu heard this, he thought, isn’t this just a pillow when you are sleepy? So he decisively added Mr. A ’s WeChat.

Mr. A chatted with Mr. Zhu for a few words, and then pulled Mr. Zhu into a cryptocurrency exchange group.

In the cryptocurrency exchange group, a Mr. B added Mr. Zhu’s WeChat, chatted with him for a few words, and then pulled Mr. Zhu into another cryptocurrency exchange group.

The second group is the key. The group owner is a "senior investment master in the cryptocurrency circle" and everyone calls him " Teacher Wang ."

"Teacher Wang" would post some screenshots of cryptocurrency trading profits in the group every day. Mr. Zhu was surprised and excited when he saw them.

A few days later, "Teacher Wang" took the initiative to contact Mr. Zhu and recommended an APP to him, telling Mr. Zhu that he could make very high profits by speculating in cryptocurrencies through the APP.

Mr. Zhu was also worried whether this was a scam, so he searched the Internet for relevant introductions to this APP. He found that this platform really existed and seemed to be formal and reliable.

So from July 7, 2021, Mr. Zhu began to invest in this platform.

For a period of time at the beginning, under the guidance of "Teacher Wang", Mr. Zhu's account was always profitable. Looking at the soaring profits, he was simply overjoyed!

But after the early morning of July 9, the funds in Mr. Zhu's account began to lose money.

At the beginning, "Teacher Wang" comforted Mr. Zhu and said that there are risks and benefits in cryptocurrency trading, and asked Mr. Zhu to prepare more funds so that he could earn back both the principal and the profits immediately.

But after several investments, Mr. Zhu's account has been in a state of loss and he could not withdraw the money! Mr. Zhu finally realized that he was cheated, and at this time he had lost more than RMB 470,000.

Routine cracked! How did the gang become bigger and stronger?

The Hangzhou Shangcheng Internet Police Brigade immediately investigated the case and discovered that the cryptocurrency trading platform mentioned by Mr. Zhu was a global digital asset trading and exchange platform registered in Singapore in December 2017.

The fraudulent APP in this case was verified to be a copycat fake platform. Although the content and icons were highly similar, they were so real that they were indistinguishable from the real thing.

After further analysis of the fraud platform, it was determined that this was a copycat APP developed, managed and controlled by a certain technology company in Hangzhou.

Continuing to dig deeper based on this clue, the police discovered that the technology company had six subordinate agents.

The agents attract traffic through various channels, and then use the guidance of "teachers" in WeChat groups and the atmosphere created by gang members to falsely claim that they can make high profits on the virtual currency investment platform by guiding transactions, and induce victims to enter the fraudulent platform for investment transactions.

Afterwards, the "teachers" in the group used reverse guidance methods such as large leverage, heavy positions, and unreasonable profit and stop losses to cause the victims to lose money rapidly, and added plug-in modules to the software to artificially change the K-line data , causing customers' positions to be liquidated in order to implement the "pig killing scheme."

Arrest at the scene, catch them all

On September 17, the Hangzhou Shangcheng Public Security Bureau organized more than 200 police officers to carry out arrest operations against the platform development company and its six subordinate agency companies in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Yili, Xinjiang, Ganzhou, Jiangxi, Wuhan, Hubei, and Xi'an, Shaanxi .

The operation arrested 93 criminal suspects, seized 6.74 million yuan, and a batch of properties involved in the case, including servers, computers, mobile phones, bank cards, etc.

At present, 52 suspects have been criminally detained according to law.

Tips on cryptocurrency trading

Just two months after Mr. Zhu's case, the country has set the tone for virtual currency! Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities!

On September 15, 2021, ten departments including the People's Bank of China, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued a notice on further preventing and dealing with the risks of virtual currency trading speculation.

The notice pointed out that virtual currency does not have the same legal status as legal currency.

Virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether have the main characteristics of being issued by non-monetary authorities, using encryption technology and distributed accounts or similar technologies, and existing in digital form. They are not legal tender and should not and cannot be circulated and used as currency in the market.

Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities.

Virtual currency-related business activities such as exchanging legal tender for virtual currency, exchanging virtual currencies, buying and selling virtual currency as a central counterparty, providing information intermediary and pricing services for virtual currency transactions, issuing tokens for financing, and trading virtual currency derivatives are suspected of illegal financial activities such as illegal issuance of token tickets, unauthorized public issuance of securities, illegal operation of futures business, illegal fundraising, etc., and are strictly prohibited and resolutely banned in accordance with the law.

Those who engage in related illegal financial activities that constitute a crime will be held criminally liable in accordance with the law.