In the 2022 shocking “Eighty-Eight Guild Hall '' money laundering incidents (八八會館) that shook the entire Taiwan, the main suspect, Zhemin Guo (郭哲敏), earned a substantial amount of funds through money laundering and online gambling platforms, involving over 20 billion NTD in underground illegal exchanges within a few years.

He was arrested in Thailand in July of this year, and upon extradition back to Taiwan in August, it was discovered that he possessed a cold wallet containing 6.41 million USDT.

The results of the prosecution's investigation reveal that Zhemin Guo and Tu Cheng-wen, the person in charge of Risen Trading (睿森銀樓), are money laundering partners, jointly owning an internationally standardised "Financial Flow Business Entity."

They specialise in handling underground currency exchanges between Taiwan and Southeast Asia, including activities related to gambling.

In the investigation of Tu Cheng-wen, dozens of individuals were questioned, and those detained include Jasmine Yuting Zhang (張于庭), the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitgin, and Xu Jinxuan (徐輊軒), the Chairman of Humor CORP.

Tax Evasion Via Hong Kong

According to the project team's investigation, from 2020 to 2023, Xu Jinxuan (徐輊軒) used companies like Humor CORP. to purchase nearly tens of billions of points.

Subsequently, he resold these points to overseas Hong Kong companies on the internet, applying for tax refunds from the National Tax Bureau under the pretext of export.

Over the course of four years, he fraudulently obtained a total of 300 million yuan in public funds but has long been under scrutiny by both the National Tax Bureau and the Investigation Bureau.

Response from the CEO of Bitgin

Regarding this, Daniel, the CEO of Bitgin, responded last night on Facebook, stating,

"Last week, our COO Jasmine, was investigated by the authorities due to transactions with a certain legal entity at the end of 2021. We want to make it clear that since March 2022, when the bank notified us that the transaction party might be involved in money laundering activities, we have taken immediate action. We ceased all transactions with that legal entity and actively reported the transaction records during that period to the relevant authorities."

Suspend All Activities of VASP

Bitgin also announced on their official website,

"The operation of Bitgin is normal as usual, and user rights will not be affected by this."

"Bitgin has decided to voluntarily suspend all activities within the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) association preparation team in Taiwan."

(Source: Bitgin's Website)

Announcement from the Taiwan VASP

As Bitgin is also a member of the Taiwan VASP association preparation team, in light of the recent investigative case, the preparation team convened an emergency meeting on the 12th. In the second point, it was mentioned,

"Relevant members of the preparation team have voluntarily decided, during the investigation phase and until a definitive verdict is reached, to temporarily refrain from participating in public affairs operations, including those involving the preparation team of the association."

For more details, please refer to the official VASP website.