Singapore’s chief technology officer was sentenced to five years in jail on Tuesday ( Aug 6 ) after drawing S$ 6.7 million from investors in Singapore through a fictitious cryptocurrency investment scheme.
Wang Xinghong, a 40-year-old Chinese nationwide, pleaded criminal to six charges of conspiring to lie, with another seven costs considered in punishment.
Investors in Singapore lost S$ 1.1 million ( US$ 829, 700 ) in what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme allegedly started by co-accused Yang Bin- listed by Forbes in 2001 as China’s second-richest man.
In April 2021, Yang designed A&, A Blockchain Innovation.
The firm offered its Chain Mining Scheme to local investors, promising them a set routine returning of 0.5 per cent on their investment, which had presumably come from mining cryptocurrencies.
In advertising materials to traders, A&, A claimed it had agreed with Yunnan Shun Ai Yun Xun Investment Holdings to get 70 per cent equity of 300, 000 mining equipment in Yunnan, China.
These supposedly own crypto like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Additionally, the company created an application that allowed investors to purchase tokens to monitor the mining scheme’s regular results.
In fact, A&, A had entered into no for deal with Yunnan Holdings, nor did it mine bitcoin to generate income.
Rather, it operated a money flow or Ponzi system, using money from new buyers to pay results owed to earlier buyers.
Yang hired Wang to create the miners software. He was aware that there were neither authentic mining nor true payouts.
He created the application as a central software where Chinese system managers may enter arbitrary numbers that falsely reflect investor returns.
Wang oversaw the operation of the game and led a group of program managers in China. He admitted receiving about US$ 100, 000 from his presence.
Wang’s charges involve a total of about S$ 1.8 million.  ,
Between May 2021 and February 2022, the firm attracted assets of about S$ 6.7 million from more than 700 buyers in Singapore.
Wang did not make any compensation, although some traders were paid results using money from early buyers.
In February of this year, the authorities announced that they were looking into A&, A’s business practices for potential lying.
In August of that year, Foreign nationals, all but one, were charged in judge.
Wang’s sentence was requested by the prosecutors, which included the significant financial losses he caused, the 12 sufferers he claimed, and the crucial role he played.
Although he did not plan the scheme, the trial claimed that his actions helped to tarnish owners and lull them into believing their investments were producing returns.
Best Criminal OF THE Condemned: DEFENCE
Otherwise, Lighthouse Law’s defense attorneys Adrian Wee and Lynette Chang requested a three-and-a-half year or three-year, three-month sentence.
Mr Wee said that when his customer initially met Yang, he was conscious of Yang’s status as a successful business.
Yang, a Chinese-Dutch entrepreneur who is now remanded in Singapore, was formerly one of China’s richest individuals.
Yang revealed to Mr. Wee that he was working for a Dubai-based crypto mining company when the two primary met.
He said Yang after told Wang that he intended to start a new crypto mining firm, with places in China, Singapore and Kazakhstan.
According to the attorney, he therefore hired Wang to create an app that would allow owners to monitor their investments and regular returns.
Despite Yang’s purported instructions, Wang was given the task of setting up an office in Shenzhen and hiring employees to create the game, with Yang allegedly paying all expenses.
Mr. Wee claimed that Yang had advised that the application should be designed so that inputs may be made personally.
The attorney claimed that his client had no influence in creating misleading representations or marketing the investment plan.
Mr. Wee claimed Yang owed his customer more than five months worth of paid expenses, but Wang spent more than US$ 5, 000 on A&’s sky site to provide for the retrieval of crucial information.
He claimed Wang was “far less guilty than any of his co-accused” and that the US$ 100, 000 he received was merely pay for his work on the game.
Other than Yang, the other two co-accused are A&, A CEO Lu Huangbin and Chen Wei, Yang’s private helper and a producer at A&, A.
Their circumstances are pending.