Shenyang police have cracked a cross-border illegal currency exchange case involving "wash trading" of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Tether.

PANews reported on December 20 that, according to Xinhua News Agency, a tip-off from the U.S. alleging that a Chinese national named Tong was involved in money laundering for drug traffickers drew serious attention from Chinese police. To investigate the matter, the Ministry of Public Security deployed the Liaoning Provincial Public Security Department to verify the information and apprehended Tong and Chen, who were attempting to flee the country, in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Both were sentenced to prison terms and fined in September of this year.

It is reported that Tong Moumou mainly used a "match-fixing" method to illegally buy and sell foreign exchange through domestic bank cards, totaling more than 16 million yuan. In some transactions, he instructed domestic personnel to purchase virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Tether and resell them to overseas individuals in exchange for US dollars. During the investigation, the police also discovered that some criminals were circumventing US supervision in areas such as large cash deposits and withdrawals and virtual currency transactions. The police have already reported this to the US through the China-US anti-money laundering cooperation communication channel and reached a consensus on strengthening law enforcement cooperation in the field of anti-money laundering.