A court in Hubei, China, sentenced a defendant to fraud for stealing Virtual Money using backdoor code, involving approximately 77.76 million yuan.

On July 25, He and others manipulated platform data using a "backdoor" to swap and transfer the Virtual Money staked by investors on the platform. In just two months, 103 investors lost Virtual Money worth approximately 77.76 million yuan. The People's Procuratorate of Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, brought the case to public prosecution, and in March of this year, the court sentenced He and three others to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from thirteen to three years for fraud, along with fines ranging from 300,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan. He was dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment and filed an appeal. Recently, the second-instance court ruled to dismiss the appeal and upheld the original judgment. In August 2017, He and Jia and others established a technology company. In July 2020, He and Jia designed their own and hired Du to develop a decentralized Virtual Money trading platform (a platform where users can conduct Crypto Assets trading without intermediary institutions). To gain the trust of investors, in September of the same year, He hired a professional project security assessment company to conduct a security audit for the platform and issued a corresponding "D coin". However, after the security audit passed, He and others launched another set of platform code with a "backdoor" function that had not passed the security audit. Through the "backdoor", He and others could arbitrarily modify the price of the "D coin" on the platform and swap the "D coin" with the Virtual Money invested by users without their consent. From October to November 2020, He and Jia instructed Du, Ling, and others to use the "backdoor" function to raise the price of the platform's "D coin" dozens of times in the early morning and then swapped a large amount of "D coins" they held with the Virtual Money invested by users on the platform. After completing the swap, these Virtual Money were transferred to He's account. After the operation was completed, He and others lowered the price of the "D coin", while users were trapped by the inability to withdraw their Virtual Money, suffering huge losses. According to the appraisal, due to the operations of He and others, a total of 103 victims suffered losses, with the defrauded Virtual Money amounting to over 77.76 million yuan. On September 6, 2024, the Yunmeng County People's Procuratorate filed a public prosecution against He, Du, Li, and Ling on suspicion of fraud. On March 21 of this year, the court accepted all the criminal facts and sentencing recommendations charged by the prosecution and made the aforementioned judgment in accordance with the law. After the first-instance judgment, He filed an appeal. Recently, the second-instance court ruled to dismiss the appeal and upheld the original judgment. (China Youth Network)