Former Chinese Billionaire Sentenced for Crypto Ponzi Scheme

Former Chinese billionaire Yang Bin has been sentenced to six years in a Singapore prison for orchestrating a fraudulent crypto investment scheme.

The 61-year-old, who also holds Dutch citizenship, admitted to multiple charges, including running a scam and operating without proper permits. He was also fined S$16,000.

Yang’s fraudulent company, A&A Blockchain Innovation, attracted over 700 investors who collectively lost around S$1.1 million between May 2021 and February 2022. Promising daily returns from cryptocurrency mining machines that never existed, Yang used new investor funds to pay off earlier investors, a textbook Ponzi scheme.

This isn’t Yang’s first legal trouble. In 2003, he was sentenced to 18 years in China for tax evasion but was released early in 2016.

His latest scam involved creating an app that falsely showed profits to investors. Authorities recovered S$100,000 from his residence, but no restitution has been made to the victims.

District Judge Brenda Chua handed down the sentence, highlighting Yang’s significant role in the scam. His lawyer managed to reduce the sentence slightly by citing his early guilty plea and cooperation with the investigation. This case serves as a warning to those investing in unregulated crypto schemes.