Even after Beijing’s crackdown, Chinese police arrested a gang that used cryptocurrency to launder $1.7 billion.

63 people have been arrested in China on suspicion of laundering up to 12 billion Chinese yuan ($1.7 billion) through cryptocurrency trading, as part of Beijing’s aggressive crackdown on digital coin trading.

Beginning in May 2021, the criminal gang allegedly converted proceeds from illegal sources such as pyramid schemes, fraud, and gambling into the cryptocurrency tether, a stablecoin pegged one-to-one with the US dollar, according to a statement issued by the Public Security Bureau of Inner Mongolia’s Tongliao city in northern China over the weekend.

The gang is said to have converted the money back into Chinese yuan using various cryptocurrency trading accounts.

According to the police, they used the messaging app Telegram, which is blocked in China, to recruit people all over the country to open cryptocurrency accounts to help launder the funds. According to the police, those individuals would be paid a commission based on the amount of money they laundered.

According to the authorities, the gang’s proceeds totaled more than 130 million Chinese yuan.

The case demonstrates that, despite Beijing’s efforts to eradicate cryptocurrency-related activities such as trading and mining, there is still a significant amount of digital currency activity taking place.

Chinese users have traditionally traded cryptocurrencies on foreign exchanges, but this became more difficult as the government crackdown intensified last year.

The Public Security Bureau was notified when one of the suspects’ bank accounts had a monthly transaction volume of 10 million yuan. Two of the suspects fled to Bangkok, Thailand, but were persuaded to return to China, according to authorities. The police did not go into detail about what this entailed.

Over 1100 people were arrested in China last year on suspicion of money laundering using cryptocurrencies.