On July 30th, 2020, official website, the Ministry of Public Security, released a message that "the Ministry of Public Security cracked the first mega-transnational pyramid scheme with digital currency as the trading medium, completely destroying the illegal trading platform of Plus Token, involving more than 40 billion yuan".
This is the first online pyramid selling case detected by the public security organs with digital currency as the trading medium, involving 2.69 million participants, with the largest hierarchical relationship of 3,293. Without writing Plus Token, this series of coin circle programmers is incomplete.
Organizational structure and packaging
Plus Token is not the best at packaging, but the organizational structure and operational efficiency are the best in the current case:
According to the introduction of the Ministry of Public Security, the PlusToken platform consists of a technical group, a marketing group, a customer service group, and a currency allocation group, which are responsible for technical operation and maintenance, publicity and promotion, consultation and reply, and review of currency withdrawal.
Participants can obtain membership by online recommendation and paying digital currency with a value of more than $500 as a "threshold fee", and members can obtain "Plus" coins created by the platform according to the paid digital currency value, and form the relationship between online and offline and hierarchy according to the order of joining.
According to the number of offline development and the amount of investment, the platform divides its members into five levels: member, big family, big coffee, great god and creation, and gives out a corresponding number of "Plus" coins as rewards and rebates according to the level.
Plus Token claims to be:
Digital currency wallet is the second largest in the world after imToken.
Developed by the original technical teams of Samsung and Google, the research and development laboratory is in Seoul, South Korea. Leo, the co-founder, is a top Russian programmer, an Alfa dog intelligent algorithm researcher and former chief strategy officer of the European digital currency Payment Exchange. (Afterwards, it was found out that Leo was just a foreign student, and his identity was all packaged. )
It has the function of "intelligent dog moving bricks"-that is, arbitrage trading on different exchanges at the same time to earn the difference (actually it does not have this function).
Investors who deposit/kloc-0.0 million yuan can earn 7 million yuan after compounding interest for one year. Turn on "smart brick moving", and you can get 8% to 30% monthly income in addition to the capital preservation and the income generated by the appreciation of Plus currency.
Wallets cover nearly 170 countries around the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Singapore, Britain, Vietnam, Russia and Myanmar.
The "Plus Token" packaged by criminal gangs is:
Asia's first STO exchange+multifunctional cross-chain decentralized wallet+smart dog moving bricks+platform currency+currency financing loan+global digital currency payment function+blockchain game+computing power mining.
The goal of ecological construction is to cover wallet, trading platform, payment, mining, bonus, game and currency integration.
(Is this structure familiar? Is it like some meta-cosmic project? )
In fact, in the words of Yancheng police:
This Plus coin is actually a coin issued by itself within the platform. It controls this Plus coin in the background, so that you can see the continuous appreciation, that is, a number, that is, a code, that is, we are talking about air coins.
The largest imitation of PlusToken (at the price of 20 19 years, the amount involved was as high as 7.7 billion RMB) was also cracked by Yancheng police.
Capital plate size
As mentioned in a report by Xinhua News Agency, this platform involves more than 3 million people, and the amount of bitcoin flowing in exceeds 3 1 10,000, and there are more than 9170,000 in digital currency such as Ethereum. According to the market situation at the time of the crime in 20 19, the total amount was more than RMB 50 billion.
However, the amount of the judgment is calculated according to the "lowest price" from May 20 18 1 day to June 27, 20 19. Even so, the total amount of eight kinds of digital currency on the Plus Token platform has reached RMB14.8 billion yuan.
The on-line data analysis, price evaluation and verification here, including shipment and liquidation, are entrusted by the judicial organs to third-party institutions, specifically referring to electronic data judicial appraisal centers, accounting firms and some companies in the industry that do blockchain security.
There was also a big news about third-party companies in April this year. The executive of a blockchain security company took the bitcoin entrusted by the police to the company to speculate on the contract-or it was just catching up with the time when bitcoin soared. In order to make up for the deficit, the suspect also collected clues about pyramid schemes and fraud in the currency circle and provided them to the police, urging the police to investigate and deal with them. Probably thinking that the seized bitcoin can be entrusted to their company for safekeeping. This person has been detained, and we will update it when there is progress.
Division and implementation of technical team
Let's go back to our theme-division of labor and conviction and sentencing of platform technical team.
At the beginning of 20 18, Chen Mou planned to set up a PlusToken platform on the internet with the concept of blockchain to carry out pyramid schemes, and hired teams of defendants Zheng and Wang to develop, operate and maintain the APP and establish a website with the domain name of www.plToken.io
At the same time, the highest marketing team of the PlusToken platform, Shengshi Alliance Community, was established, and publicity materials such as the introduction, bonus system and operation mode of the PlusToken platform were published through WeChat group, Internet, irregular organization of meetings, concerts, tourism, etc., fictionalizing and exaggerating the strength and profit prospects of the platform for publicity and promotion.
In March and April of 20 18, Zheng developed an APP and established a website for the PlusToken platform.
On May 20 18 1 day, the platform was officially launched.
From May 20 18 to February18, Zheng led a technical team to operate, maintain, optimize and upgrade the PlusToken platform.
On August 20 18, the international version was launched, which opened the registration authority of 37 countries around the world, accepted eight mainstream currencies, and launched the international plus payment function.
On September 20 18 14, the platform sponsored the WBF World Blockchain Conference Jeju Technology Conference and held the global launching ceremony of "Plus Token" in a hotel in Jeju Island, South Korea.
At the end of June, 20 19, after the news that the leader of Plus Token was arrested was published in the newspaper, the organizer immediately apologized to the public, saying that he had not been strict in the audit.
On October 20 18 10, the plus Token wallet trading platform was launched. International Plus payment supports all digital currency payments, and users can exchange virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and dogecoin through the exchange.
20 18 1 1 month, the wallet exchange was renamed PsEx exchange.
20 181February, Zheng handed over the operation and maintenance of the platform to Wang's team and left the platform completely.
After nearly 9 months of service, Zheng received 165. 1 10,000 yuan from Chen Mou, of which the illegal profit was 255,000 yuan.
From 20 181February to 20 19 June, Wang led a technical team to carry out daily operation, maintenance, optimization and upgrade of the PlusToken platform, and developed new functional modules of the platform according to the requirements of Chen Mou:
In hindsight, the function of the new gameplay is mainly to delay the speed of the crash.
Chen Mou gave Wang digital currency worth 400,000 yuan as the operation and maintenance expenses every month, and paid another1400,000 yuan for daily work expenses. In addition to these, Chen Bo also paid Wang1550,000 in the name of settling-in allowance and bonus-all of which were finally deemed as illegal profits.
On 20 19 1 month 12, the PsEx exchange started trading.
On October 20 19 1 month, in order to escape the legal attack, Chen Mou and his girlfriend moved the platform customer service group and the coin allocation group to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to continue pyramid selling activities.
In order to facilitate the development of business abroad, Chen Mou also spent14.6 million yuan to buy land locally in the name of others, and spent nearly 5 million yuan to apply for Vanuatu green cards and passports for the backbone of the gang.
At the beginning of 20 19, Yancheng police immediately set up a task force and informed the Ministry of Public Security of the case.
On March 20 19, Changsha dens were investigated and destroyed.
However, PlusToken did not stop pyramid selling activities, and the advertisements to attract investors were broadcast on giant billboards in Times Square in new york, USA.
On June 27th, 20 19, under the coordination of the Ministry of Public Security, the police of the task force went to Vanuatu, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries and regions, and finally successfully arrested 27 major suspects hiding abroad.
On the evening of June 28th, 20 19, there were continuous reports from PlusToken users that the platform could not pay the cash withdrawal. The price of platform tokens has stagnated at 139.237 USD since the evening of 29th, and there has been no price fluctuation for several hours. The platform official is still holding on, explaining that the network is not good, but it can only enter money and cannot withdraw cash, which fully shows that this is a lie.
20 19 On June 29th, Vanuatu Daily Mail reported that at least six people from China were arrested by local police forces for "engaging in illegal Internet scams". On July 5th, the Post reported again that six suspects had been repatriated to China, and also revealed the real name of the founder of plustoken.
On August 6, 20 19, the People's Procuratorate of Yancheng Economic and Technological Development Zone announced the latest progress of the PlusToken case, and the procuratorate approved the arrest of Chen Mou, Ding Mou, Peng Mou, Wang Mou, Gu Mou and Yuan Mou suspected of organizing and leading pyramid schemes.
Conviction and sentencing of technical director
On September 22, 2020, Jiangsu court made a case against Chen Bo, Ding Zanqing, Peng Yixuan, Gu Zhijiang, Yuan Yuan, Lu Jiaolong, Zheng Jing, Wang Renhu, Lu Wanlong, He Sisi, Liu Jia, Peng Bo, Liu Shuai and Wu Jianhong for organizing and leading pyramid schemes, and Chen Tao, the defendant in the original trial, for covering up and concealing the crime.
In May of 20021year, the second instance ruled that the original judgment was upheld.
Finally:
After the first trial, Chen Mou and Wang appealed, and the reasons for the appeal and the court's judgment are very representative, which is worth studying carefully.
Chen Mou's appeal reasons are mainly:
The court held that:
The main reasons for Wang's appeal are:
The court held that:
For the record, Wang was arrested in Vanuatu with Chen Mou.
Appendix list
According to Suzhou Ruiya Certified Public Accountants, the electronic transaction bill used by PlusToken platform to collect digital currency's wallet address is appraised. As of June 27th, 20 19, the digital currency paid by PlusToken platform * * * includes:
According to the price determination center of Yancheng Municipal Price Bureau, the above-mentioned eight kinds of digital currency are equivalent to RMB 1 48,8037.50 based on the lowest price from May/day of 20/kloc-0 to June 27th of 20 19.
After June 28, 20 19, there are still wallet addresses illegally transferred from digital currency to the platform, counting * * *: