The Chinese authorities are banking on the cryptocurrencies seized during the breakdown of the PlusToken financial pyramid in the amount of $4.2 billion. This has become known after the publication of the Yuncheng court order.
A total of 194,764 BTC, 833,079 ETH, 1.6 million LTC, 27.8 million EOS, 74,156 DASH, 488 million XRP, around 6 billion DOGE, 79,561 BCH and 213,734 USDT were at the disposal of the Chinese authorities.
“The seized digital currency will be sold in accordance with the law, and the proceeds will be transferred to the state treasury,” the decision reads.
The court did not clarify the possible methods for the selling of the cryptocurrency.
Started in 2018, the PlusToken pyramid scheme acted like a success of a cryptocurrency wallet. As stated by the prosecutors, the key PlusToken participants attracted investors with a yield of 10-20% monthly and a referral program. They managed to engage 3 million people with their platform.
Back in June 2019, users started sounding the alarm about problems with withdrawing funds.
Over the period of its existence, the scheme has attracted 315,000 BTC, 117,448 BCH, 96,022 DASH, 11 billion DOGE, 1.83 million LTC, more than 9 million ETH, around 51 million EOS and 930 million XRP. The court estimates that the total value of these criminally obtained assets amounts to $11 billion.
In July this year, Chinese police arrested 27 leading suspects in organizing the activities of the cryptocurrency pyramid. Another 82 key functionaries of the group were also detained. Damage from PlusToken is estimated at $5.8 billion.
In August, police detained six of the pyramid’s creators. In September, they were charged with organizing and operating a fraudulent scheme.
