I just came across a fairly complex cross-border criminal case involving cryptocurrency platform fraud and money laundering—it’s quite interesting.

First, let’s talk about the crypto side. In November 2022, a Hong Kong crypto platform called Atom Asset Exchange suddenly was unable to process withdrawals and then shut down immediately. The mastermind behind it was Su Weiyi, who took off with HKD 16.74 million and fled. Later, in July 2024, he was arrested by Hong Kong police. What’s interesting is that Su Weiyi’s circle of associates also included Guo Huaping, a convicted ethnic Chinese former mayor from the Philippines. These people laundered illicit funds by using shell companies and cryptocurrency methods.

But the main character of the story is a man named Wang Shuiming, from Anxi County in Fujian. Wang Shuiming was recently arrested in Montenegro and will be extradited back to China. What is his true identity? He is one of the key suspects in what is described as Singapore’s largest money laundering case in history. On August 15, 2023, Singapore police deployed more than 400 officers to carry out a raid and cracked the major money laundering case in one fell swoop. The case involved 3 billion SGD (about 16 billion RMB).

Wang Shuiming and nine other suspects were all captured on the spot, aged between 31 and 44, with all their places of origin in Fujian. Outsiders call them the “Fujian Gang.” The group’s operating methods were very professional—holding passports from multiple countries, forging documents, and using tools such as cryptocurrencies to launder illegal gambling and scam funds from Southeast Asia, then investing them into high-end assets in Singapore and overseas.

Wang Shuiming’s personal assets are also quite astonishing. In mainland China, his company’s investment amount alone is 32 million yuan, and he also owns a factory worth several million. In Xiamen, he has two apartments with a total value of 20 million yuan. In a bank account in Hong Kong, there is HKD 2 million, and he also holds cryptocurrency valued at 110,000 USD. This kind of asset allocation approach looks like it is designed to diversify risk on a global scale.

The entire case reflects one key issue: how important risk control and compliance for cryptocurrency platforms are. When platforms like Atom Asset Exchange shut down, ordinary investors are the ones who suffer. Meanwhile, people like Wang Shuiming use the cross-border features of cryptocurrencies to launder money, which deals a blow to the industry’s overall reputation. That’s also why compliance reviews and fund regulation by legitimate exchanges are so crucial.