Chinese spies tried to buy off US officials with BTC
Bitcoin Bribes: Spies from China offered Bitcoin (BTC) rewards to gain access to US Department of Justice (DoJ) investigations. The DoJ has been digging around Huawei Technologies, a Chinese multinational company based in Shenzhen, China.
Guochun He and Zheng Wang are accused by the DoJ of trying to force a US official to hand over documents. The papers were related to an investigation into the Chinese technology and telecommunications giant. Later, the The Wall Street Journal confirmed that the case concerned Huawei.
Both spies reportedly approached an FBI agent in 2019, offering a reward of more than $60,000 for the requested documents. To avoid suspicion, payment will be made in Bitcoin.
Now the Chinese spies will be charged with attempting to obstruct a criminal process and conspiring to act as an illegal agent of a foreign country.
Bitcoin bribes: Crypto used as a reward
The DoJ claims that in September 2022 the spies offered new payments in BTC to send additional information on the case. On-chain data shows agents paid $20,000 in cryptocurrency the following month.
An analysis by Elliptic, a company specializing in blockchain, shows that the Chinese used the Wasabi Wallet hashing service to hide their movements.
The case could further increase the US government’s crackdown on these blending services. In August, the country’s finance department sanctioned Tornado Cash. The claim was that the platform was used by various criminal and terrorist groups to launder money and hide their tracks in the crypto world.
China vs USA
The recent dismissal of Chinese spies could further heighten tensions between the two superpowers. Commenting on the case, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the DoJ “will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law on which our democracy is based.”
Prosecutor Breon Peace said Chinese government intelligence officials wanted to thwart an ongoing criminal case against one of China’s biggest companies. Huawei is said to have transmitted information to China through cell towers installed in the United States. The US government’s main concern is that the company has sent confidential data about its military bases.
The two countries have accumulated friction and disagreements in several other aspects in recent years, including over Taiwan.
Many fear that a worsening of these problems could start a conflict more damaging than the Russian-Ukrainian one. This will certainly shake up the cryptocurrency market and the global economy as a whole.
As for the Huawei case, Guochun He and Wang could face sentences of 60 years and 20 years in prison, respectively.
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