According to reports, a former deputy director at the Beijing Financial Bureau faces incarceration for crimes related crypto.
Caixin reported that Hao Gang had been involved in money-laundering operations involving Bitcoin (BTC).
In exchange for bribes worth tens or hundreds of millions of Yuan, he also helped an executive from a crypto-mining company to lift border controls.
According to the report, a Beijing intermediate court sentenced Hao Gan on Thursday to 11 years of imprisonment and a 1.3 million-yuan fine ($178.380), nearly two years after an investigation was conducted into allegations of corruption and money laundering.
In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of proceeds from the crime and their transfer to the State Treasury.
A Chinese newspaper published a warning last year that officials in the government could have been storing crypto to prevent investigations.
Mo Hongxian is a Professor at the Wuhan University Law School. He told the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Legal Daily, that the government and regulatory systems need to be adapted to modern forms of corruption enabled by cryptography.
There are at least two issues with using virtual currencies like Bitcoin for corruption. It is hard to control the use of peer-to-peer digital currencies like encrypted currencies that are distributed without the “medium” of banks. Transactions and anonymity are convenient for criminal and illegal activities.
It is also difficult to process and identify. Virtual currencies like Bitcoin, for example, are not recognised by our country but they perform the same functions. In judicial practice, the issue of how to handle and identify cases is important. .”
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The report Beijing official sentenced to 11 years in prison for involvement in Bitcoin money laundering operation: Report is subject to change as new information becomes available.
