Employees of a leading Chinese short-video platform have been found guilty of laundering approximately $20 million through Bitcoin.
A rapidly expanding Chinese short-video giant has become embroiled in a significant corruption and money laundering scandal. According to a rare report by People’s Daily, several senior employees collaborated with external partners to illegally divert around 140 million yuan ($20 million) from the company. An employee named Feng, responsible for managing reward policies and vendor approval processes, allegedly shared internal data with external suppliers.
To conceal their activities, the suspects converted the stolen funds into Bitcoin through eight centralized exchanges, using advanced "coin mixing" techniques to hide transaction trails. They subsequently exchanged the crypto back into Chinese yuan and transferred the money into their personal bank accounts.
Authorities in Beijing’s Haidian district swiftly identified suspicious transactions through electronic data analysis, recovering over 90 Bitcoins and partially compensating the company’s loss. The seven-member criminal group received prison sentences ranging from 3 to 14 years for abuse of office.
Chinese authorities highlighted the increasing role of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in commercial corruption due to inadequacies in companies' internal controls amid rapid digital economic growth. Officials advised businesses to reinforce their management processes and adopt preventive measures to mitigate corruption risks, especially in digital operations such as user acquisition, data analytics, and advertising.
