After deliberating on a case that involves a potential fraud related to the purchase of tokens, the Supreme Court of the Shandong province has ruled that cryptocurrency “was not protected by law” as reported by Coco Feng in The South China Morning Post.
A Chinese plaintiff invested some RMB 70,000 (USD 10,800) to buy tokens endorsed by three of his acquaintances in 2017. Their accounts were allegedly closed after the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, banned financial institutions and payment businesses from providing services related to crypto transactions, said the article.
An intermediate court in Shandong’s capital city Jinan ruled in January 2021 that the plaintiff’s fraud allegation was not tenable because the assets did not have any legal status. Jinan city’s intermediate court upheld the ruling when the plaintiff appealed in March, according to the official verdict.
The bitcoin exchange scheme has been operating since 2019, involving transactions totalling more than 1.4 billion yuan. The procuratorate recommended that six of those involved be jailed for terms ranging from two to four years, and an investigation into the case continues, according to the prosecutor’s statement.
In another case, a man in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, was sentenced to 16 months prison for theft after he tampered with a meter box to get subsidised electricity for a crypto mining operation at home. He was found to have “stolen” electricity worth more than 26,000 yuan.
In May, the State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, chaired by Vice-Premier Liu He, announced a crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading in the country.