A man in Qingdao, China, stole 107 BTC while helping an acquaintance register a wallet and was sentenced to 10 years and 9 months for theft.

Mars Finance News: The People’s Procuratorate of the Licang District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China, recently handled a Bitcoin theft case. The defendant, Zhang Moumou, obtained the mnemonic phrase while assisting an acquaintance in registering a virtual currency wallet, and then transferred 107 BTC in multiple transactions, which at current market prices was worth more than 50 million yuan RMB. Zhang Moumou argued that his actions were a form of “protective custody,” but the prosecution found that he transferred the stolen BTC through multiple trading platforms and exchanged it for more than 660,000 yuan RMB. In the first instance, the Licang District Court sentenced Zhang Moumou to 10 years and 9 months in prison for theft and imposed a fine of 100,000 yuan RMB; in the second instance, the original verdict was upheld.

According to reports, the prosecutor handling this case strictly followed laws and judicial policies. After conducting in-depth analysis, the prosecutor determined that although China’s regulatory policies negate the legal-tender status of virtual currencies, they do not negate their property attributes, nor do they prohibit citizens from legally holding and transferring them. Bitcoin requires investment in computing power, funds, and other costs to obtain, giving it economic value. Rights holders can achieve exclusive control and management through private keys and mnemonic phrases, which aligns with the core characteristics of “property” under criminal law and can therefore be an object of theft crimes. In determining the amount involved, because virtual currencies do not have official pricing, the Licang District Procuratorate did not use market-price estimates and instead used the actual proceeds from selling the stolen goods—an amount of 660,000+ yuan RMB—as the theft amount, thereby ensuring accurate conviction, appropriate sentencing, and the unity of crime and punishment.