Involving more than 100 million yuan! Wenzhou police destroyed the first technical criminal gang involved in blockchain ＂smart contract＂
Qianjiang evening news Hour Journalist Wang Zifang Correspondent Yu Yifeng Jin Yijian
Four million McLaren -650S, three million Ferrari -California T and eight million luxury villas …
Their owners are several "95" who started from scratch. With a crooked door technology, they stepped onto the "peak" of their lives, driving luxury cars and living in luxury houses, spending money all day, completely ignoring the tears of the deceived victims.
"Blockchain" is a hot word in the field of information technology at present, but some people "rub" the hot spots and engage in illegal and criminal activities. Recently, the police in Ouhai, Wenzhou cracked the first criminal case of using blockchain "smart contract" in China, arrested 10 suspects, seized more than 20,000 kinds of virtual currency on the spot, and seized and seized three luxury cars and three luxury houses, including McLaren and Ferrari, involving a total amount of more than 100 million yuan.
On July 9, five main members of the criminal gang were arrested by the procuratorate.
Can you make a profit by moving bricks?
Wenzhou guy caught in the "fire coin" scam.
Mr. Li, a native of Wenzhou, has money-making genes in his bones. He came into contact with financial management very early. On April 8 this year, he went to the ouhai district Public Security Bureau to report the case.
Mr. Li said that he had earlier joined a Telegram exchange group called "Huobi Global Brick-moving Arbitrage HT Chinese Group Community", and the group owner also released some "Brick-moving Arbitrage Tutorials" in the group. At that time, many group friends shared their experiences in the group, saying that following the tutorial operation had made a profit.
Similar to the "bitcoin" that netizens are familiar with, ETH, HT, BTC and USDT are all virtual currencies.
"Simply put, I transfer my ETH (Ethereum) to the account designated by the other party, and the other party will return the corresponding HT (Firecoin) at a ratio of 1:60. The value-added part of the converted HT is the money I earned, and the profit is about 8%." Mr Li told the police.
However, when Mr. Li transferred 10 ETH worth 12,000 yuan to the account provided by the owner, the other party returned 600 fake HT that could not be traded.
By the time he contacted the other party and wanted to ask a clear question, the other party had blacked him out. Mr. Li realized that he had been cheated and immediately called the police.
After receiving the report, the Netan Brigade of ouhai district Public Security Bureau immediately launched the investigation. However, the police soon discovered that this is a case involving blockchain and virtual currency. For this new type of crime, traditional investigation methods are helpless and difficult to work.
Ouhai Netan Brigade quickly changed its thinking and found another way. It was found that this group of managers had been using their own HT "smart contract" to illegally obtain the victim’s ETH, and case clues began to surface.
The so-called Smart contract is a computer protocol that aims at disseminating, verifying or executing contracts in an information-based way. Smart contracts allow trusted transactions without a third party, which are traceable and irreversible.
There are only a few "living people" in the chat group of 13,000 people.
Except for the liar and the victim, the rest are "zombies"
After investigation, the police found that there are dozens of chat groups called "Huobi Global Brick Moving Arbitrage HT Chinese Group Community", with more than 13,000 members in the group, but more than 10,000 accounts are offline all the year round. Obviously, the suspect applied for a "zombie" account to set off the size of the people in the group.
Most of the remaining online personnel are controlled by computer robots, and they will only reply some edited information such as "the course is effective and profitable".
In the end, only a few administrator accounts are truly online, and their task is to publish tutorials to lure victims into falling for it.
This configuration has formed a complete crime framework within the group. Every day, dozens to hundreds of people with virtual currency join the group and become "lambs to be slaughtered".
After the victim joins the group, the criminals will introduce the profit information through the "trust" in the group, make the victim believe it, transfer ETH to the account provided by the "group owner", and finally return some false HT with no value to the victim.
To put it simply, this is a game of "empty gloves and white wolves". The victim gives his tens of thousands of virtual coins to the liar, but what he gets is a bunch of fake virtual coins.
Under the guidance of the Netan detachment of Wenzhou Public Security Bureau, the police in Ouhai, after more than a month’s investigation and judgment, finally grasped a large amount of criminal evidence of this swindler gang, confirmed the criminal gang headed by Chen Mou, Yu Mou and Xu Mou, and locked their activities.
On June 4th this year, Wenzhou Ouhai police dispatched elite forces such as cyber security, criminal investigation, police station, etc., with the cooperation of Fuzhou police in Fujian, and successfully arrested all 10 suspects in a luxury villa and a commercial house in Cangshan District, Fuzhou. More than 30 mobile phones and computers were seized at the scene, more than 20,000 virtual currencies such as ETH, BTC and USDT were seized, and 3 second-hand luxury cars such as McLaren and Ferrari were seized.
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Chen Mou and other three people are from Fujian, and they are all born after "95". After being arrested, Chen Mou and others confessed to the facts of the crime.
It turns out that Chen Mou, Yu Mou and Xu Mou are college classmates. With their interest in computers and a certain understanding of virtual currency, the three of them started to think badly soon after graduation.
They recruited seven employees to conduct "business training" on computer and blockchain knowledge, and also assigned them detailed work such as registering blockchain wallet address, selling stolen goods, chatting with victims, and daily management. Subsequently, the three rented hundreds of overseas servers to fully automate the program control of the crime.
Such a strict organizational structure, combined with intelligent automatic program control, made this criminal gang feel foolproof until the police came to the door.
After investigation, Chen Mou and others used the blockchain "smart contract" technology to commit crimes crazily. After the "empty gloves and white wolves" illegally obtained a large number of victims’ ETH, they cashed in and squandered it.
The money came too quickly and too much. The three people went out to bars and nightclubs almost every night, lived in high-end villas and presidential suites of high-end hotels all the year round, and even brazenly rented large office buildings as crime venues.
Since 2019, this gang has illegally obtained tens of thousands of victim ETH virtual currencies by using false HT "smart contracts".
Up to now, the police have mastered the information that more than 1,300 people across the country have been cheated, involving a value of more than 100 million yuan. At present, five main members of the criminal gang have been arrested by the procuratorate.
As the first criminal case using blockchain "smart contract" in China, although the case has been successfully solved, the police found that some victims still did not report the case to the public security organs.
The police in Ouhai, Wenzhou, appealed to the victims who were cheated out of virtual currency by swindlers. If they encounter the same scam as Mr. Li, please ask people with similar experiences all over the country to report the case to the local police in time, and the local police will contact the Ouhai Public Security Network Security Brigade to recover the losses as soon as possible.
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