Chinese authorities in Rong County recently announced that they have prosecuted eight people accused of being organizers of the Magic Data Chain (MDC) financial pyramid scheme. The pyramid scheme is believed to have carried out transactions totaling more than $147 million.
Virtual Currency Pyramid Scheme
Authorities in China’s Rong County, Zigong City, recently prosecuted eight people accused of running an MDC financial pyramid scheme, according to a local report. According to the report, the case was prosecuted by the Rong County People’s Procuratorate, and was not prosecuted until ten months after the arrest of 12 key MDC members.
According to a report by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Public Security, the MDC pyramid scheme was exposed in May 2021. Subsequent investigations by Rong County authorities revealed that the scheme had been in existence since July 2019.
2 million registered MDC members
In the report, authorities said the criminals, led by a man named Yang, “created the blockchain site Magic Data chain and the virtual currency trading site XIN Exchange.” According to the report, the virtual currency platform MDC conducted transactions totaling more than $147 million (1 billion yuan).
In addition, the scheme had 2 million registered members and about 200,000 participants in 30 provinces in China. When Rong County authorities finally raided the MDC in 2021, the value of “seized and frozen” assets was just over $4.4 million, according to the report.
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