PlusToken
- launched in 2018
- marketed as a "smart crypto wallet"
- promised 10 to 30% monthly returns
- founder Chen Bo, born 1983, Chinese national
- claimed profits came from arbitrage trading and mining
- none of it was real
the pitch that hooked millions
- download the app
- deposit BTC or ETH
- buy their token called PLUS
- watch your "returns" grow every month
- refer friends and climb tiers like "Big Boy" and "Great God"
- PLUS token even hit $350 on small exchanges
- everything looked legit from the outside
how they sold the dream
- WeChat groups running 24/7
- in person investment workshops
- supermarket billboards
- slick ads pretending to be an international company
- claimed a headquarters in Vanuatu
- 3 million people across China, South Korea, and Japan bought in
the real numbers behind the scam
- 180,000 BTC flowed into PlusToken wallets
- 6.4 million ETH
- 111,000 USDT
- total value around $2 to $3.3 billion depending on the estimate
- victims ranged from 2.6 to 4 million people
- most were ordinary people chasing "guaranteed" returns
June 2019, the music stops
- withdrawals freeze overnight
- team claims a "hack" and says funds are being moved for security
- then the founders vanish
- the app starts showing a message on transactions
- it says "sorry, we have run"
- not a joke, they actually wrote that
the hunt begins
- Chinese police move fast
- June 2019, six ringleaders including Chen Bo arrested in Vanuatu
- extradited back to China
- by mid 2020, 27 masterminds and 82 core members rounded up
- some were hiding in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia
- over 100 people linked to the operation total
how they tried to hide the money
- used crypto mixers like Wasabi Wallet
- ran peel chains to split funds into tiny pieces
- cashed out through OTC brokers on Huobi
- dumped over 25,000 BTC on the market
- their sells were so big they actually crashed Bitcoin prices in late 2019
the courtroom
- December 2020
- Yancheng Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu
- Chen Bo and 13 top operators sentenced
- prison terms ranged from 2 to 11 years
- fines up to $900,000
- court confirmed it was a pyramid scheme
- total fraud amount 14.8 billion yuan, roughly $2.25 billion
what the police seized
- 194,775 BTC
- 833,083 ETH
- millions in LTC, EOS, XRP, DOGE
- worth $4.2 billion at 2020 prices
- all forfeited to the Chinese national treasury
- some of those ETH wallets sat dormant until 2024 then started moving again
what victims got back
- almost nothing
- typical for these schemes
- the money went to the government not the people who lost it
the faces behind $3.3 billion in stolen crypto
- Chen Bo, born 1983, the founder
- Dong Jianhua, born 1990
- Wang Renhu, born 1984
- Peng Yixuan, born 1982
- Ding Zanqing, born 1978
- Yuan Yuan, born 1987
- all arrested, all sentenced
the lesson that never gets old
- they promised 10 to 30% monthly returns
- 3 million people said "sounds good"
- the app looked real, the returns looked real, the community looked real
- but zero actual trading ever happened
- zero mining ever happened
- it was new money paying old money until the money ran out
if someone promises you guaranteed returns in crypto
they are not giving you alpha
they are making you the exit liquidity
save this post and send it to someone who needs to hear it
Information based on publicly reported investigations and court rulings.