China’s Police Arrests Over 1,000 Crypto Traders on Fraud and Money Laundering Charges

Chinese authorities have arrested 1,100 suspects who allegedly used cryptocurrency to launder funds for telecommunications network fraud activities.

China Continues Crackdown on Crypto

The  Ministry of Public Security on Wednesday (June 9, 2021) announced that authorities cracked down on a group of people believed to be running an illegal criminal gang. According to the announcement, they used crypto for money laundering activities in order to avoid law enforcement agents.

Meanwhile, the authorities were able to stop the flow of funds and catch the suspects through its card freeze operation. Since January 2020, the Chinese government has carried out drastic measures to combat money laundering and illegal activities in the country, targeting the cryptocurrency and telecommunications industry.

The actions of the government consequently led to a freeze wave, with banks reportedly freezing cards linked to crypto transactions. As reported by CryptoPotato back in November 2020, this affected over 70% of Chinese bitcoin miners.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, the latest development is the “fifth round of centralized network collection”, which focuses on people using crypto for money laundering activities. The investigations led to the arrest of 1,100 suspects and the dismantling of 170 criminal gangs.

China has continued to adopt a negative and hostile stance towards the cryptocurrency industry. As CryptoPotato recently reported, the government blocked Weibo accounts of popular crypto influencers. Back in May, three industry bodies reiterated the Chinese government’s ban, stating that they were not to offer services to cryptocurrency-related businesses.

In the same month, the State Council of China called for a ban on bitcoin mining activities in the country. There were recent reports that Xinjiang stopped local BTC mining operations in the region, following Inner Mongolia’s actions. Also, Chinese internet services giants Baidu and Weibo were censoring search words associated with Huobi, OKEx, and Binance.

Bitcoin Sees Major Adoption from Different Countries

Amid the China FUD, good news regarding bitcoin is coming from other countries. El Salvador became the first country to accept bitcoin as a legal tender. While it will take 90 days to enact the law, Wikipedia listed BTC as one of El Salvador’s official currencies.

The Central American country also stated the government will give citizenship to individuals who invest three BTC in its economy. three BTC into its economy. Paraguay also said that it would begin working on a project that will involve bitcoin and PayPal.

Featured image courtesy of Forbes