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The whole story of the PlusToken MLM case involving 40 billion yuan

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It is rumored that encrypted assets worth US$4.2 billion turned over to the treasury have been sold at the end of 2019 and early 2020

Author of the original text: 0x49, 0x13

This week, the criminal ruling on the PlusToken pyramid scheme case "Chen Bo , Ding Zanqing and other organizations and leaders of pyramid selling activities, Chen Tao's second-instance criminal ruling for the crime of covering up, concealing criminal proceeds, and criminal proceeds appeared on the Judgment Documents Network, which allowed the outside world to explore the 40 billion yuan pyramid selling empire involved. The rhythm of this article will take readers to review the beginning and end of this pyramid scheme that illegally made tens of billions of profits.

At the beginning of 2018, Chen Bo and others established the PlusToken platform in the name of blockchain, and carried out MLM activities based on it . On May 1, the platform app was officially launched. At the same time, Chen Bo, Ding Zanqing, Peng Yixuan, Gu Zhijiang and others also established the PlusToken platform marketing team "Golden Age Alliance Community". Publish promotional materials such as the introduction, bonus system, and operating model of the PlusToken platform through WeChat groups, the Internet, irregular meetings, concerts, and travel.

Among them, PlusToken means that it can carry out arbitrage transactions on different trading platforms and earn a high return on price difference. Dog moves bricks". Members who want to open the smart dog need to pay $500 as a threshold fee.

Members will form a superior-subordinate relationship in the order of joining the platform, and according to the number of offline members developed by users and payment The amount of funds is divided into different registers. The income of members mainly comes from three aspects: the income of smart dogs moving bricks, the income of links (development of offline income), and the income of executives.

"Smart Dog" enjoys 10% fixed income every month, which means that investors deposit 1 million yuan and compound interest You can earn 7 million yuan a year. The dynamic income is obtained through invitation to register, and the rebate promotion structure given in the official publicity has 10 layers—much higher than the three levels above that are designated as pyramid schemes.

Shanghai Chenxing Electronic Data Judicial Appraisal Center later authenticated the background electronic data of the PlusToken platform: April 6, 2018 As of June 27, 2019, the platform has recorded a total of 2.69 million registered member accounts after removing duplicate ID card accounts, of which 1.59 million have been authenticated, and the maximum level is 3293.

According to Suzhou Ruiya Accounting Firm’s transaction electronic bills used by the PlusToken platform to collect members’ digital currency wallet addresses Identification: As of June 27, 2019, the PlusToken platform has received a total of 314,200 BTC, 117,400 BCH, 9,174,200 ETH, 96,000 DASH, 11 billion DOGE, 1.84 million LTC, and 51.36 million tokens paid by members. EOS and 928 million XRP.

So, where are all the encrypted assets held? (read more)

Analytics firm Elementus found that 48% of all ETH withdrawn from PlusToken wallets was sent to Huobi, and ZB.com, Upbi, OKEx, Gate Trading platforms such as .io are one of the destinations of the transfer. At the same time, on December 17, 2019, Bitcoin plummeted below $6,900 in the early hours of the morning. Some traders said that the reason for the plunge was triggered by a report on PlusToken by Chainalysis.

On June 27, 2020, the public security organs carried out overseas law enforcement cooperation, and the Vanuatu law enforcement agencies arrested a number of Chinese people suspected of committing crimes, including suspects who used the PlusToken Wallet App to engage in pyramid schemes. Vanuatu has handed over the relevant suspects to China.

On July 30, the Ministry of Public Security unified command and deployment, and successively took all 27 major criminal suspects and The 82 key members of the case were arrested and brought to justice, which completely destroyed this large transnational network marketing organization entrenched at home and abroad.

On September 22, the PlusToken network MLM case announced the results of the first instance on September 22: the court organized and led the MLM 16 defendants, including Chen, Ding, and Peng, were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two to eleven years for the crime of activities, and were also fined. The stolen goods, stolen money and fruits, and criminal tools involved in the case were confiscated and turned over to the state treasury according to law.

Subsequently, many defendants refused to accept the above judgment of the first instance. On November 19, the Intermediate People's Court of Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.

According to the criminal ruling of Jiangsu Yancheng Intermediate People’s Court, a total of 194,775 BTCs and 833,083 BTCs were seized in the PlusToken pyramid scheme ETH, 1.4 million LTC, 27.6 million EOS, 74,167 DASH, 487 million XRP, 6 billion DOGE, 79,581 BCH and 213,724 USDT, totaling about $4.2 billion.

At the same time, according to the criminal ruling, the seized digital currency will be handled according to law, and the funds and income obtained will be confiscated according to law and turned over to treasury.

Reference materials:

1. "Chen Bo, Ding Zanqing and others organize and lead MLM activities Chen Tao's second-instance criminal ruling for the crime of covering up, concealing criminal proceeds, and crime proceeds"