A Gansu Tianshui Court Tries a Virtual Currency Money Laundering Case: The Defendant Who “Ran Errands to Withdraw Cash” Was Sentenced to Two Years and Four Months

Gate News message, April 5, the Qinzhou District People’s Court of Tianshui City, Gansu Province, recently tried a criminal case involving virtual-asset money laundering. The defendant, through a part-time job as a “high-paying errand runner,” knowing that the funds were proceeds from fraud, made repeated cash withdrawals totaling more than 390k yuan within 7 days in monitoring blind spots, and converted the funds into virtual currency to transfer them to their superior, earning a profit of 21.5k yuan. The court held that the defendant committed the crime of concealing and disguising proceeds of crime, and sentenced him, according to law, to two years and four months of imprisonment, fined him 10k yuan, and ordered him to make restitution of the illegal proceeds. The judge noted that offline cash withdrawals have become a key link in “laundering” the proceeds of telecommunication fraud. “Errand running for cash withdrawals” and “high-paying same-day pay” are often part of the fraud chain. The public should stay alert to behaviors such as accepting cash on behalf of others, making bank transfers, and assisting in the transfer of funds, to avoid becoming a criminal accomplice.