Chinese authorities have arrested all 27 major suspects of PlusToken Ponzi scheme - report
China's Ministry of Public Security has reportedly arrested all 27 major suspects of the PlusToken Ponzi scheme that defrauded nearly $3 billion from its victims.
Several Chinese news outlets reported the news on Thursday, saying that the ministry has also arrested 82 "key members" involved in the scheme.
In August 2019, Chinese police officials confirmed to The Block that six suspects affiliated with PlusToken had been arrested, but the main suspects were still on the run at the time.
PlusToken was launched in early 2018 and was already suspected to be a pyramid scheme as early as September 2018. In June 2019, the company triggered a wide-ranging panic among Chinese and Korean investors when some users reported that they could not withdraw funds from the wallets. However, the issues were then brushed off as a "hacker attack."
PlusToken managed to collect multi-billion dollars from about 800,000 investors. Over a period of time, hundreds of millions of dollars tied to PlusToken have been moved. Just last month, nearly 790,000 ETH, worth roughly $188 million at the time, were moved.
