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The Ministry of Public Security in China has held a press conference to address some of the internet-based financial security issues going on in the country. The press conference focused mainly on the activities of the ministry since 2021 in combating financial fraud that has plagued its internet space.
In addressing the public, a spokesperson of the ministry identified the stablecoin USDT as the most common tool that has been adopted by practitioners of internet fraud, according to the ministry’s findings. According to the spokesperson, A large number of benchmarking platforms and digital currency are used for money laundering, with USDT (Tether) being the most common and most serious of them.
The ministry used the opportunity provided by the press conference to recount some of its achievements so far in the battle for a clean financial industry. After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee started paying special attention to combating and controlling internet-based fraud.
The General Secretary of the ruling party, Xi Jinping, on April 6, 2021, released the guidelines for tackling the identified problem. This marked the beginning of last year’s crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry whose impact was felt both in China and across the globe.
The guidelines and instructions were people-centered and have been implemented judiciously by the responsible organs of government, according to the spokesperson. This resulted in heavy blows being dealt with the practitioners of internet crime and fraud within the Chinese region. This has effectively curbed the activities of internet fraudsters which had been on the rise. Since June 2021, there has been a steady drop in the number of fraud cases registered, as remarkable results have been achieved by the government.
To achieve these milestones, a high-pressure operation was embarked upon using the various organs of the Ministry of Public Security. This targeted some in-depth special operations like “Cloud Sword”, “Great Wall”, “Break Card”, “Cut Flow”, and “5.10”, in addition to other local operations and overall strikes.
Altogether, the ministry organized and launched 150 cluster campaigns to effectively combat and deter crime across the nation. This enabled it to crack a total of 394,000 internet fraud cases in the past year with 634,000 criminals arrested during the same period. This reflects an increase of 28.5% and 76.6% year-on-year respectively.
In collaboration with the National Immigration Bureau, the Ministry of Public Security also organized a special operation tagged “cutting the flow”. This led to the destruction of 12,000 criminal gangs illegally leaving the country, while 51,000 smuggling suspects were arrested.
Other government organs such as the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the People’s Bank of China have also joined forces with the Ministry of Public Security to promote the “broken card” operation. 41,000 business outlets and institutions have been named and punished under this program. The ministry’s spokesperson listed other numerous achievements since the beginning of its campaign, showing a lot of optimism in the progress of the crackdown agenda.
Recall that the crackdown, most of which was felt by the cryptocurrency industry led to the shutdown and exodus of the majority of cryptocurrency miners and other related businesses from China in 2021. Any remaining practitioners do so in secret and at the risk of being punished by the government if found. The identification of USDT (Tether) as a major tool for facilitating illegal transactions does not even help the industry’s case if there was one.
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