Chinese police uncovers online crypto gambling network with $56B turnover

Chinese police detained 5 people linked with a high-level illegal gambling business. 

China is a crypto-hater country. In late 2021, the country’s central bank imposed a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies and also kicked out all the crypto companies from mainland China. Despite the crypto blanket ban in China, trading of cryptocurrencies in China’s special administrative regions Hong Kong & Macau is legal. 

On 18 July 2023, A local media report confirmed that China’s police captured 5 people in the country. Detained people were the core backer behind a gambling network. 

The total turnover of the uncovered gambling business was nearly $56 billion and the majority of the financial transactions were in cryptocurrencies, which is not legal in China’s jurisdiction.

“Preliminary investigation of this online gambling case, the amount involved in the case reached 4000 billion, there were more than 5 people involved, the server was set up overseas, the method of fund laundering used the most difficult virtual currency, and the main backbone of the case may be overseas,” police stated.

Crypto is not legal in China but bad actors are still actively using cryptocurrencies in illegal activities. Last month a few enforcement agencies reported that some mainland Chinese were using P2P social platform Telegram to conduct crypto-drug trade, which is illegal & strictly prohibited in the country.

Last week a few media reports confirmed that huge numbers of mainland Chinese usually visit Hong Kong to trade cryptocurrencies for cash. Reports noted that such people are making money via high commission fees for crypto trading. 

China supports Hong Kong

The past several years showed that the political relationship between Hong Kong & China has been not good but still reportedly Chinese government officials are in support with Hong Kong over crypto adoption plans, which was unexpected. 

In the present time, only non-crypto related all kinds of technology use & experiment are allowed. For example, Web3, NFTs, blockchain, and Metaverse development activities are allowed in China. 

Hong Kong government authorities belive that crypto adoption in Hong Kong will bring huge numbers of job opportunities for the Chinese population.

Read also: Two major banks are not supporting the crypto sector in Hong Kong