01
The current situation and reasons of the new round of “freezing card tide”
Since September, a new wave of “freezing cards” once again hit the currency circle. Not only did many readers report to reporters that bank cards participating in OTC transactions were frozen, but also a large number of investors on Weibo and other social platforms talked about similar situations. “Many people I know around have frozen cards, and transactions as large as hundreds of thousands to as low as 2,000 yuan have frozen cards.” Xue Xu (a pseudonym), a cryptocurrency investor who was frozen this time, told reporters .
Although the phenomenon of freezing cards is not uncommon in the cryptocurrency industry, in terms of coverage and extent, the freezing card tide is more violent than the past few times, and even the phenomenon of users’ subway cards being frozen together, and many more Users reported that they could not reopen accounts in mainstream banks, which caused a lot of inconvenience to life.
At the same time, the depth of the OTC platforms of major exchanges has also decreased significantly. The unit price gap between the USDT buying area and the selling area often has a price difference of more than 2 points. The OKEx platform also has a maximum price difference of 5 points. This phenomenon reflects OTC merchants. Both the number and activity of are declining sharply.
Another obvious sign is that most of the pending orders on the OTC platforms of most major exchanges no longer support Alipay transactions and can only be traded through bank cards. A person in charge of an OTC merchant told reporters that the reason is that the Alipay account has been “abolished” in three days recently, indicating that third-party payment channels are likely to be carrying out anti-money laundering operations that are no less powerful than bank card channels.
The relevant person in charge of Huobi also told reporters that a large number of users have recently reported that bank cards used for OTC transactions have been frozen, but in fact, it is not only the cryptocurrency industry, but also related information in many fields such as foreign trade and finance. It can be seen from some social media information that there are indeed a large number of people in the foreign trade industry complaining that bank cards have been frozen, and some articles have spread widely.
The problem reflected by this phenomenon is that the large-scale freezing of cards is not aimed at the cryptocurrency OTC field, but the domestic police has strengthened the anti-money laundering work, and the OTC transaction field will inevitably be affected.
According to reporters’ interviews with people in various industries and sorting out online data, the reasons for this large-scale freezing of cards can be roughly summarized into two points.
First, domestic telecommunications fraud, killing pigs, pyramid schemes and other scams continue to occur frequently. A large amount of funds are defrauded from ordinary people. Coupled with long-term active overseas gambling platforms, there is an increasing demand for money laundering. As a more suitable money laundering medium, cryptocurrency has become the preferred tool for many scammers or gambling platforms to transfer funds and launder money. Some criminal groups also cooperate with cryptocurrency OTC merchants to launder money. This year, many well-known OTC merchants have been investigated by the police. Recently, many related crackdowns have been publicly reported.
According to Hebei News Network, on September 3, Hebei Cangzhou police successfully detected a large telecom network fraud case, arrested Zhu Mouhui and other 12 criminal suspects, and seized 3.95 million yuan of stolen money on the spot. Upon questioning, members of the criminal gang confessed to the fact that since 2020, they have helped overseas electronic fraud gangs to split and transfer funds to obtain benefits after “whitewashing” on virtual currency trading platforms such as OKEX and Huobi.
According to reports from the payment industry, the People’s Court of Yongqiao District, Suzhou City recently heard the suspected pyramid scheme of the LON project. The project used methods such as investing LON currency rebates and developing member rebates to attract registered investment from people from all over the world online and offline, and a total of 13,251 members were developed. Defrauded investment funds of more than 50 million yuan. In the process of handling stolen money, the principal criminals and others, in order to avoid detection by domestic regulatory authorities, convert the investment and rebate money into virtual currencies such as Litecoin through Huobi, in order to achieve the purpose of money laundering.
According to a report from the Beijing News on September 24, Liao Jinrong, director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said at the 9th China Payment and Settlement Forum that preliminary statistics have exceeded one trillion yuan in gambling funds flowing out of China each year, and some gambling gangs used virtual currency to collect The transfer of gambling funds has brought great challenges to the crackdown.
Second, the relevant state departments have continuously increased their anti-money laundering efforts and issued more stringent guidance documents, and the relevant regulatory policies of major banks have become more stringent. OTC industry veteran Fu Mo (anonymous) told reporters that the freeze card wave is likely to be related to the “Decision of the Ministry of Public Security on Amending the “Procedural Provisions for the Handling of Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs” that was reviewed and approved in early July this year. There are 141 amendments to the rules and regulations, many of which involve the determination of case jurisdiction.
According to reporters’ inquiries, with regard to crimes committed against or using computer networks, the new regulations have added victims to the public security authorities on the basis of identifying the location of the site creator or administrator and the location of the computer information system used by criminals and victims. The public security organs at the location at the time of the infringement and the place where the victim’s property suffered damage may have jurisdiction.
Since today’s telecommunication fraud cases often involve people from all over the country, this adjustment is equivalent to giving the public security organs in most parts of the country the power to exercise jurisdiction over related fraud cases, instead of being limited to a handful of areas where the public security organs have jurisdiction.
According to the existing regulations, as long as the public security organ at or above the county level approves it, the public security organ can prepare a notice of assistance in freezing property and notify financial institutions and other units to implement it. Considering that the public security organs in different regions have subtle differences in their understanding of the legal rules and case rules, as well as the degree of emphasis and work energy, the aforementioned adjustments will easily lead to a sharp increase in the phenomenon of freezing cards.
At the same time, the aforementioned amendment decision came into effect on September 1 this year. This time point is also in line with the trend of high incidence of freezing cards since September this year.
It is foreseeable that with the further tightening of relevant regulatory policies, the freezing card phenomenon in cryptocurrency OTC transactions will become the norm in the industry for a long time. Therefore, it is especially necessary for most cryptocurrency OTC traders to understand more preventive measures for frozen cards and how to deal with the phenomenon of frozen cards.
02
How to deal with the frozen card incident
To deal with possible frozen cards, the most important thing for users is to learn to prevent them and reduce the risks in OTC transactions as much as possible through some techniques.
Based on relevant interviews and network information, OTC transactions usually have the following points of attention: find trusted merchants to establish fixed deposit and withdrawal channels, take safety as the core consideration, and do not need to pursue the best price every time; maintain sufficient legal currency cash flow , Reduce the frequency of OTC transactions; use cards of small and medium banks or local banks for transactions; use unusual bank cards for transactions, reducing the inconvenience caused by bank card freezing.
It is understood that there are usually two situations when bank cards are frozen. One is bank freezing, which is also called stop payment by some industry professionals. That is, bank cards can only receive payments but not make payments. Generally, the bank’s risk control system is triggered by the user’s transaction behavior. , The bank will freeze on its own. If the user’s funds do not involve illegal funds, this situation will usually be automatically unfrozen after three days;
The other is judicial freezing. Generally, the public security organ freezes the bank cards that have fund transactions with the parties involved in the case, usually for half a year or one year, and unfreeze after the case is finished. But Xue Xu told reporters that there are many cases around him that have not been thawed for more than a year, which may mean permanent freezing of the card.
Regarding user response measures, Fu Mo pointed out to reporters that if a user encounters a bank card being frozen after OTC transactions, he can wait about three days to determine the nature of the frozen card. If it has not been unfrozen after three days, he needs to find the bank and the public security agency to find out the situation.
Guo Yatao, head of the chain law lawyer team, told reporters that users should find out the reason why the bank has understood the frozen card and the investigative agency that applied for the frozen card in the first time, try to get in touch with the investigative agency in time, explain the whole story, provide corresponding materials, if the investigative agency If it is necessary for the investor to go to the local area to cooperate with the investigation, it is recommended to be accompanied by someone or directly seek professional legal assistance.
“For those who have provided sufficient supporting materials and still cannot be unfrozen, or if the case-handling personnel are found to have violated the rules during the communication process (for example, it has been verified that the money involved in the case is not related to the case but is not unfrozen), you can appeal or complain in accordance with the regulations. According to the law, the public security agency must deal with the matter within the statutory time limit,” said Guo Yatao.
Xue Xu also described his contacts with the police in detail. “The criminal investigation teams in Shanghai and Inner Mongolia explained the freezing of the cards in writing on the grounds that they were fraudulent, and then asked me to provide transaction order records and income statements. I’m consulting a lawyer to see how to appeal,” Xue Xu said.
However, the relevant person in charge of Huobi told reporters that according to user feedback they received, most of the bank cards in the card freezing tide were only frozen for three days, and they were automatically unblocked after three days.
In the cryptocurrency OTC transaction, the exchange, as the platform party, also plays an important role in the frozen card incident, and even needs to bear certain responsibilities. Many interviewed users have complained that the platform party does not strictly review the qualifications of OTC merchants, resulting in a lot of black money. Pour into the OTC market.
To this end, reporters interviewed mainstream exchanges such as Huobi and Binance. They all stated that they will further improve the qualification review mechanism of OTC merchants in the future, and at the same time strengthen the construction of transaction risk control systems and user safety education.
At the same time, Huobi also explained in detail how the platform handles user complaints about frozen cards. “We usually guide users to understand the detailed information of frozen cards, such as the freezing period, freezing agencies, and their contact information. If necessary, follow-up. If you cooperate, Huobi will let users contact the police, and then the police will contact Huobi to cooperate.”
The relevant person in charge of Binance further told reporters that after the police issue a transfer order, relevant departments of Binance will cooperate with the police to give relevant transaction information to help users unfreeze bank cards as quickly as possible. Throughout the Q3 quarter, Binance’s fiat currency department assisted the police in investigating dozens of cases, including many fraud cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
In addition, industry anti-money laundering standards are also advancing. According to Sina News, the Blockchain Industry Application Anti-Money Laundering Standards Seminar was held in Beijing on September 22. The conference discussed the basic anti-money laundering technology security code of conduct for blockchain industry applications or platforms, and the “Blockchain Industry Application The content of “General Requirements for Anti-Money Laundering” may also help to further standardize the OTC market.
Cryptocurrency trading is a gray area of legal supervision, and various asset security issues will inevitably occur. This depends on the joint cooperation of supervisors, exchanges, OTC merchants and other parties. A good mechanism is used to minimize similar incidents and promote industry cooperation. Planned development.
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