According to the Lianhe Zaobao, knowing that his boss Liu Hanquan was not licensed to operate the exchange business, the 34 year old man Xie Jiajie still helped his management team and operators to exchange cryptocurrency, handling 430 transactions with a total value of more than 35 million yuan in just 23 days. The man was arrested during a police raid and sentenced to 10 months in prison. The defendant Xie Jiajie is facing two charges of violating payment service laws and one charge of violating corruption, drug trafficking, and serious crime (confiscation of benefits) laws. He had previously admitted to one of the charges, and the remaining charges were taken into consideration when the judge handed down the verdict on June 26th.
It is understood that Sir Money Changer (SMC) is a licensed family company that provides currency exchange and cross-border remittance services, with the Mohamad couple as directors. In June 2021, SMC established a new business location in Geylang, and Liu Hanquan proposed to pay 14000 yuan per month to borrow a license to independently operate remittance services. He recruited employees on his own, but paid the housing provident fund in the name of SMC, and later repaid the related expenses. Starting from September of the same year, Liu Hanquan conducted business, including cross-border remittances and Tether transactions, but did not declare to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority or submit transaction records. The mastermind Liu Hanquan fled to Cambodia after the incident and emptied his cryptocurrency wallet. He is still at large.
