Six of the 109 individuals recent arrested by Chinese authorities in connection with the $5.8 billion crypto Ponzi PlusToken have been charged.
The defendants Chen Shaofeng, Luu Jianghua, Lu Jianghua, Lu Qinghai, Jin Xinghai, Wang Yin, and Zhang Qin were charged by prosecutors in Xiangshui County and Yancheng City on September 7. The authorities said they were “suspected in organizing and leading criminal pyramid schemes.”
109 individuals suspected of involvement with PlusToken were arrested in late July, including 27 persons believed to be the scam’s executives along with 82 “key” promoters.
The accused ringleader of the scheme was also arrested in May, while a further six suspects were extradited to China from Vanuatu in July 2019.
PlusToken published its whitepaper in February 2018, claiming to be a South Korean crypto exchange offering interest-bearing accounts generating returns of between 10% and 30% per month in the form of its native token ‘PLUS’.
The scam took in more than 200,000 Bitcoins (BTC), 789,000 Ether (ETH), and 26 million Eos (EOS) from approximately $3 million unsuspecting investors by May 30, 2019.
After PlusToken users found they could no longer access their funds during June, Chinese police became involved. No major movements of PlusToken funds appear to have taken place since the last arrests, with the last known transfers from PlusToken wallets taking place in late June.