Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted 14 people in what they describe as the country’s largest-ever cryptocurrency money laundering case, alleging the group laundered more than $70 million from over 1,500 victims.
The Shilin District Prosecutor’s Office said Friday that the defendants face charges of fraud, money laundering and organized crime, and requested the confiscation of NT$1.275 billion ($39.8 million), along with seized Bitcoin, Tron, $640,000 in Tether (USDT), $1.8 million in cash, two luxury cars and $3.13 million in bank deposits.
Authorities accused ringleader Shi Qiren, his wife and a manager surnamed Yang of running a network of 40 stores under the names “CoinW” and “CoinThink Technology Co., Ltd.,” which posed as being authorized by Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission. Prosecutors say the group collected millions in franchise fees and installed cash deposit machines to funnel money, later converting the funds into USDT through local exchange BiXiang Technology before transferring them overseas.
Since 2024, the operation allegedly defrauded 1,539 people out of roughly $71.9 million. Qiren, who refused to plead guilty, could face up to 25 years in prison.
The group itself was also scammed, prosecutors said, when another suspect surnamed Gu tricked Qiren into paying $93,000 in exchange for a fake promise of securing anti-money laundering registration.
The indictments come just days after a separate case in which a crypto influencer was sentenced to one year in prison for laundering proceeds from a cryptojacking scheme that defrauded two major cloud computing providers.
