Hong Kong arrests 12 people laundering money through crypto exchanges

In a joint operation in mainland China and Hong Kong, police have arrested 12 people accused of organizing a large-scale money laundering scheme through cryptocurrency exchanges, local media reported.

Among those detained are nine men and three women who used more than 560 fictitious bank cards to convert fraudulently obtained funds into digital assets. The criminals recruited droppers, opened bank accounts in their names and sent the money collected by criminal means there. The funds were then transferred to cryptocurrency through crypto exchanges, which allowed them to hide the origin of the illegal capital.

Investigations revealed that the suspects had rented a residential property in Mong Kok, where they coordinated their activities. Police began following two of them when they left the apartment. They went to Tsim Sha Tsui, where they attempted to cash out some of the funds through a cryptocurrency exchange. It was there that law enforcement officers caught them red-handed, seizing HK$770,000 ($98,540) in cash.

Following the initial arrest, ten more arrests were made among the group's members, aged between 20 and 41. In total, HKD1.05 million ($134,370) in cash; 560 financial institution cards; mobile phones and documents with data linked to money laundering operations were seized from the participants in the scheme.

Earlier, it was reported that police arrested 792 cryptocurrency scammers in Nigeria who were stealing digital assets and fiat currency from people around the world.