According to reports from Shandong Legal Daily, the Licang District People’s Procuratorate of Qingdao handled a Bitcoin theft case. The defendant, Zhang Moumou, obtained the mnemonic phrase while assisting a friend in registering a virtual currency wallet, and then transferred away 107 BTC in multiple transactions; based on the current market price, this is approximately 53.55 million-plus RMB.

Zhang Moumou argued that his conduct was a “protective takeover,” but the prosecution found that he transferred the stolen BTC through multiple trading platforms and exchanged it for about 660,000-plus RMB. In the first instance, the Licang District Court sentenced Zhang Moumou to 10 years and 9 months’ imprisonment for theft, and imposed a fine of 100,000 RMB; in the appeal, the original verdict was upheld. The report states that while virtual currencies do not have the status of legal tender, they have property attributes and can be the subject of theft charges.