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According to a report from the Beijing Daily client, the Market Supervision Administration of Haidian District, Beijing, investigated and handled the city's first illegal case of assisting pyramid schemes using blockchain and virtual currency technology, resulting in a technology company being fined and confiscated a total of over 930,000 yuan.The technology company involved is an outsourcing service provider for a certain public blockchain, offering support such as operations, market services, publicity and promotion, exchange docking, and maintenance. This public blockchain launched the "Atomic Plan" and "Hathaway Plan," which are centered around recruiting people for rebates, using the number of recruited individuals as the basis for rebates, and requiring participants to invest funds to obtain membership qualifications. Despite being aware of the pyramid scheme applications associated with this public blockchain, the involved company continued to provide technical operations, external publicity, and maintenance of virtual currency trading channels, facilitating the flow of funds and the spread of activities related to the pyramid scheme.Ultimately, the pyramid scheme activities of this public blockchain were investigated by public security authorities, the organizers were criminally detained, and the involved technology company was administratively punished with a total fine and confiscation of over 930,000 yuan for providing facilitative conditions.

The criminal case involving Aiden Pleterski, who claims to be the "King of Crypto" in Canada, related to a Ponzi scheme involving digital assets, will be submitted to the jury for deliberation after closing arguments this week. Presiding Judge Shaun Nakatsuru has given the jury final instructions, and the jury is set to begin deliberations on Thursday. Pleterski is accused of defrauding approximately $30 million from fans on social media between 2021 and 2022, and was charged with fraud in 2024, subsequently awaiting trial for over two years.In his closing arguments, Pleterski declared his innocence. He stated, "I am not guilty of these charges, which is why I am not pleading guilty. This would have been proven if I had not been forced to represent myself. That's all I have to say." Due to his choice to represent himself, he is acting on his own behalf in court. If convicted of fraud, he faces a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.In another criminal case, five men are charged with kidnapping and torturing Pleterski in 2022, some of whom are reportedly victims of his scheme. Defendant Deren Akyeam-Pong has pleaded guilty to nine charges and is awaiting sentencing. Pleterski is one of several figures in the crypto industry facing fraud charges; former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 and is serving a 25-year sentence in the United States.

According to NPR, the prediction market platform Polymarket has launched an investigation into dozens of bets related to the U.S. midterm elections on November 3, focusing on potential insider trading and market manipulation. Sources say that at least two cases have been submitted to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).Shana Bautista, Polymarket's Global Intelligence and Investigations Director, stated that the company has formed a 16-person team and deployed a new election trading monitoring system that generates hundreds of risk alerts daily. The monitoring scope includes U.S. compliant platforms that require identity verification, as well as international platforms that allow anonymous cryptocurrency trading.The system integrates analysis of social media, data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC), cryptocurrency trading records, information from banking partners, and statistical models to identify abnormal accounts and trading patterns.

Seoul police arrested 7 suspects accused of using generative AI to launch hacking attacks. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency stated that about 90 organizations were involved, collectively stealing 8.2 million records, marking the first large-scale arrest of suspects in AI-assisted hacking attacks in South Korea. The targeted victims included hospitals, universities, private tutoring centers, golf courses, and subsidiaries of large corporate groups, all of which held a significant amount of personal information, including names, contact details, and records of ordinary citizens. One funeral service company lost 1.22 million records, and reports indicated that the tutoring center's data also contained information on minors.According to local media reports, the main suspect, 32 years old, studied arts and sports and has no IT background. He told investigators that he self-taught hacking techniques through YouTube and online blogs, while police pointed out that he had worked in a security company conducting simulated attacks from 2019 to 2022. He initially used website vulnerability scanning tools and later introduced AI coding proxies and an automated penetration testing system called Artex at the end of August. Police stated that he hacked into 60 companies over a span of 44 days from August 31 to October 13.The entire attack operation lasted about 13 months, from September 2025 to this October, and the case was filed in June after a victim reported it. Police indicated that such a large-scale attack previously required a hacker group to accomplish, but AI now allows one person to achieve this in a short time. The suspect sent emails to 38 victims, collectively extorting 360 million Korean won, approximately 272,000 US dollars, but the only confirmed payment was 300,000 won, about 210 dollars. The main suspect was detained and transferred to prosecutors last Friday, facing charges of violating South Korea's Information and Communication Network Act, as well as extortion and attempted extortion. Police will continue to investigate the other 6 accomplices and confirm more victims, with 15 institutions already reporting damages.

Chinese national Zheng Zhao was extradited from the Netherlands to the United States and appeared in court on October 23 in the Central District of California. He is suspected of participating in an investment fraud and money laundering case involving 174 American victims, with funds exceeding $36.9 million.The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that the fraudulent activities were operated by a scam center in Cambodia. Prosecutors claimed that over $36.9 million was transferred into an account at Deltec Bank in the Bahamas controlled by accomplices, and then exchanged for the stablecoin USDT and transferred to a digital asset wallet in Cambodia. Eight other co-defendants have pleaded guilty; Zheng Zhao faces charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which could result in a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted.

According to a notice from the U.S. Department of Justice, a Chinese citizen has been extradited for allegedly participating in a cryptocurrency fraud case targeting U.S. citizens, with the amount involved reaching millions of dollars. The man appeared in court for the first time after being extradited back to the U.S. from the Netherlands, where he is charged with participating in an international cryptocurrency investment fraud scheme.The scheme was carried out by a fraud operation located in Cambodia, with victims including 174 identified U.S. citizens. The man has been ordered to be detained; his formal arraignment is scheduled for November 30 at the federal district court in downtown Los Angeles.

A judge in Argentina dismissed a criminal case against President Javier Milei and 10 others related to the LIBRA token. According to The Defiant, the ruling also involves Milei's sister Karina Milei and Hayden Davis.In addition, a class action lawsuit by New York investors against LIBRA was separately dismissed in September.

According to CoinDesk citing The Paper, Chinese prosecutors are seeking to confiscate over 61,800 bitcoins and other assets related to a fraud case involving more than 40 billion yuan. The case revolves around Qian Zhimin, the actual controller of Tianjin Lantian Ge Rui Electronic Technology. Prosecutors stated that from 2014 to 2017, the company sold unlicensed financial products in China, raising over 40.378 billion yuan from more than 102,000 investors, resulting in nearly 20 billion yuan in losses for investors.The related funds were reportedly used to repay early investors, operate fraudulent investment projects, and purchase bitcoins, real estate, cars, and jewelry, rather than being invested in legitimate businesses. Qian Zhimin fled China in 2017 and settled in the UK. UK authorities have seized his assets, including over 61,800 bitcoins, as well as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin SV, Ripple, Dogecoin, cash, jewelry, and investment holdings.On October 13, the Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court stated that it has accepted the prosecutors' application to confiscate the aforementioned assets as illegal gains and has initiated a six-month announcement period for victims and stakeholders to participate in the litigation; those who do not participate can still apply for compensation regarding the recovery of assets. Previously, the UK High Court ruled that for the over 61,000 bitcoins seized in the UK, victims claimed that Chinese law should apply rather than UK law. This ruling requires determining whether victims have property rights under Chinese law, and a hearing will be held subsequently, with some victim lawyers seeking to appeal.

According to Caixin, just four days after the High Court of England ruled that the property rights dispute over more than 60,000 bitcoins in the Qian Zhimin case is subject to Chinese law, approximately 16,000 Chinese victims participating in the UK recovery have been given the opportunity to continue challenging this ruling.The High Court of England has held another hearing, and the judge has approved the Chinese victims to appeal the legal applicability ruling made on October 12. Lawyers from both sides also discussed issues related to the litigation costs of the previous legal applicability dispute, whether the approximately 16,000 individual applicants would continue to pursue recovery, and how to withdraw, among other matters.

According to the British Daily Mail, 48-year-old Hok Seng Ling has returned £5.6 million to the UK government. He was ordered by the court to hand over the aforementioned funds after admitting to involvement in the largest money laundering case in British history, which involved £5.5 billion.Ling previously served as the butler for Qian Zhimin. Qian Zhimin orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 128,000 Chinese investors between 2014 and 2017, subsequently converting the proceeds into Bitcoin and fleeing to the UK. Malaysian-born Ling resides in Matlock, Derbyshire, UK, assisting the Bitcoin queen in laundering illegal proceeds and helping her evade the UK police through methods such as booking Airbnb and arranging assistance.Last November, Ling was sentenced to 4 years and 11 months in prison after admitting to money laundering-related offenses at Southwark Crown Court in London. Following this, the judge issued a confiscation order requiring him to hand over £5,603,305, most of which came from cryptocurrencies seized at the time of his arrest. The aforementioned amount has been fully recovered, along with an additional £1,990 in interest.

According to The Block, Citigroup Research stated in its latest report that Aave is a decentralized collateral liquidity ecosystem, representing one of the more significant real-world cases in tokenized financial infrastructure.Citigroup indicated that collateral liquidity could ultimately become one of the most important use cases for tokenization.

According to on-chain detective Specter, ZachXBT disclosed that the Bitget attackers concealed the stolen funds through Zcash (ZEC), and other stolen funds also began to flow into ZEC, including funds from the Cryptobills Ledger incident and $12 million from the Triple-A hacker attack.Threat actors are using ZEC to transfer stolen funds.

The Hong Kong police announced that over the past two weeks, they have received more than 150 cases of WhatsApp account hijacking scams, with total losses exceeding 15 million Hong Kong dollars. Recently, an employee of a local company engaged in virtual currency exchange encountered account hijacking. The scammers blocked the original work group and blacklisted members, copied the group image, name, members, and profile pictures to create a fake group, impersonating a customer representative to request exchanges.The victim, as per usual practice, first transferred cryptocurrency to the designated wallet of the other party. It was only after discovering that the customer account balance was insufficient and calling to verify that they realized they had been scammed, resulting in a loss of over 4 million Hong Kong dollars for the company. The police remind that WhatsApp groups can be forged, but the member phone numbers cannot be exactly the same as those in the real group, and the timestamps of conversations cannot be replicated. They also suggest enabling two-factor authentication and verifying the other party by phone before making remittances, avoiding logging into accounts on public WiFi or public computers.

According to CTV News, the Toronto police announced the arrest of 7 people in a violent kidnapping case targeting cryptocurrency holders and the subsequent investigation, including 3 members of the Canadian Armed Forces, with a total of 82 criminal charges filed.The police stated that the victim was kidnapped on July 25, handcuffed, and beaten, as the suspects attempted to obtain access to their cryptocurrency assets and corporate security systems, after which they were released. The investigation also seized firearms, drugs, and approximately 2,500 stolen military ammunition, and the case is still under investigation.

According to reports from Strait News, in March 2025, Zheng Mouyi, Zou Moumou, and others exploited the weak regulation and difficulty of evidence collection in offline USDT over-the-counter trading to plan a "black eat black" robbery crime under the guise of virtual currency offline trading.The gang raised over 340,000 yuan and invited virtual currency merchants for offline transactions. During the transaction, after the merchant transferred over 40,000 USDT into the virtual wallet controlled by the gang, Zheng Mouyi sprayed the victim's eyes with chili water on the spot and, along with others, violently seized all the transaction funds. After the incident, six involved individuals divided the stolen money. The day after the incident, the public security authorities quickly arrested all involved individuals, recovering most of the stolen funds and returning them to the victim.The Jin'an District Prosecutor's Office legally prosecuted Zheng Mouyi, Zou Moumou, and four others for robbery. In 2026, the court heard the case and sentenced the five defendants to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from five years and seven months to ten years and four months for the crime of robbery.

Recently, the police in Binhai City, Shandong, China received a report from a citizen named Xie, stating that 1,300 USDC stablecoins and NFTs worth tens of thousands of yuan had mysteriously disappeared from his digital wallet. There were no obvious transfer alerts or signs of phishing links in the wallet. The police began an on-chain investigation into the virtual currency transfer records and actively sought cooperation with enterprises to analyze the suspect's account.After extensive work, a major suspect named Chen (30 years old, from Fengyang County, Chuzhou, Anhui) was identified. On October 9, technical police officers went to Fengyang County to arrest him. Upon arrival, Chen initially denied the allegations. However, the police utilized the immutable and traceable characteristics of blockchain evidence to gradually break down his psychological defenses. Chen ultimately confessed to the theft. Chen has now been criminally detained in accordance with the law, and his family has actively compensated the victim for the losses. This case marks the first instance of virtual currency theft in Binhai City.

According to a report by The Paper, the case of Qian Zhimin, involving over 40 billion yuan in illegal fundraising and more than 60,000 bitcoins, has seen new developments in domestic judicial procedures. The Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court announced that it has accepted the Tianjin People's Procuratorate Second Branch's application to confiscate the illegal gains of the suspect Qian Zhimin as of September 28.According to the property confiscation list published by the Tianjin Second Intermediate Court, in addition to bitcoins, the involved virtual currencies also include 72,745.79502 bitcoins cash, 72,745.78555 bitcoins gold, 72,745.7845 bitcoins Satoshi Vision, 3,605,989.9995 ripples, and 70,081,208.62553222 dogecoins (which have been converted and deposited into an interest-bearing account by British judicial authorities). Additionally, the confiscated assets also include cash in US dollars, euros, and British pounds, jewelry, as well as bank balances and investment portfolios.The Tianjin People's Procuratorate Second Branch believes that Qian Zhimin is suspected of fundraising fraud, and after fleeing, he has been wanted for a year without appearing in court. There is evidence proving that over 61,800 bitcoins and other assets seized in the UK belong to illegal gains and their proceeds, and should be recovered along with the transformed and converted properties and proceeds, except for those legally returned to the harmed fundraising participants, which should be confiscated.

Jeonbuk Bank is reportedly the first commercial bank in South Korea to start issuing Korean won loans secured by Bitcoin, according to local media. The Bitcoin is held by a third-party custodian; the effective changes to the execution rules allow the bank to sell the collateral through a court ruling for recovery without actually receiving the Bitcoin.The loan scale, interest rate, and loan-to-value ratio have not been disclosed. A representative from Jeonbuk Bank told Chosun that one loan has already been issued.

An important ruling has been made by a UK court regarding the cross-border asset recovery dispute involving over 61,000 Bitcoins related to the illegal fundraising case of Tianjin Blue Sky Ge Rui in China. On October 12, local time, a judgment obtained by Caixin from the High Court of England and Wales indicated that the UK High Court determined that the property rights claims made by Chinese investors regarding the Bitcoins in question should be judged according to Chinese law rather than UK law.This means that approximately 16,000 Chinese victims who have participated in the UK recovery process may not be able to share in the substantial appreciation gains brought about by the soaring Bitcoin prices under UK law, and can at most recover their principal and interest.

According to The Defiant, on-chain records of the Ethereum blockchain show that a wallet related to the CryptoBilis theft has transferred 464 ETH to the mixing protocol Tornado Cash.On-chain data indicates that these funds first passed through an intermediary address and were then dispersed to four deposit wallets, while the source address currently retains about 700 ETH.