FOUR foreigners in a crypto mining scheme were charged in court on Thursday (Aug 17) for engaging in a conspiracy to cheat that involved over S$1.8 million, as well as for providing digital-payment token services without a licence.

The four men, aged between 40 and 60, are Dutch national Yang Bin and Chinese nationals Lu Huangbin, Wang Xinghong and Chen Wei. All four were executives in a company called A&A Blockchain Technology Innovation, which was investigated last year over possible cheating offences.

Yang was chairman of A&A Blockchain at the material time, and Lu, its chief executive. Wang was its chief technology officer and Chen, a director.

Between May 2021 and February 2022, A&A Blockchain offered a crypto mining investment scheme that promised investors a fixed daily return of 0.5 per cent.

The four allegedly conspired to induce 12 persons into investing with A&A Blockchain, by falsely representing that the company owned a large number of crypto mining machines.

Between August 2021 and February 2022, A&A Blockchain also operated a crypto exchange known as AAEX, which purportedly offered the trading of several cryptocurrencies. However, A&A Blockchain did not have the required licence issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

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Each of the four has been charged with 12 counts of engaging in a conspiracy to cheat and and one count of consenting to A&A Blockchain providing payment services without the required licence under the Payment Services Act.

An individual convicted of a cheating offence under the Penal Code could face a fine or a jail term not exceeding 10 years, or both.

Of the 12 cheating charges, 10 are “amalgamated charges”, meaning that a person convicted of these charges would be liable to two times the amount of punishment to which that person would otherwise have been liable for one incident of the offence. 

Any person found guilty of providing payment services without a licence faces a jail term not exceeding three years, or a fine of up to S$125,000, or both.