- CTO of A&A Blockchain, was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding investors out of S$6.7 million.
- The 40-year-old Chinese national pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to cheat, with seven additional charges.
- The company used misleading marketing to claim a 70% stake in mining machines based in Yunnan, China
On Tuesday, Wang Xinghong, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of A&A Blockchain, was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme. The 40-year-old Chinese national was convicted of conspiring to defraud investors out of S$6.7 million.
Wang, who pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to cheat, also had seven additional charges considered during his sentencing. His scheme, which promised substantial returns on cryptocurrency investments, deceived numerous investors in Singapore.
A&A Blockchain’s Cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme: Misleading Claims and Investor Losses
A&A Blockchain, established in April 2021, was involved in a Ponzi scheme that misled 12 investors, resulting in losses of over $1.8 million. The company falsely claimed to own 300,000 cryptocurrency mining machines. From May 2021 to February 2022, A&A Blockchain attracted around $6.7 million from over 700 investors in Singapore. Wang was described as the “key cog” in this fraudulent operation by the prosecution.
The company misrepresented its operations by using misleading marketing materials to assert it had a 70 percent stake in mining machines based in Yunnan, China. It claimed these machines could generate cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Additionally, A&A Blockchain developed an app for investors to buy tokens and track their returns. In reality, the company had no agreements for acquiring mining machines and was not engaged in any actual mining or revenue generation.
Instead, A&A Blockchain operated as a classic Ponzi scheme, using new investors’ funds to pay returns to earlier investors. Wang, who was hired by the firm’s founder Yang to develop the investment app, knew there were no legitimate returns or mining activities. He created the app to falsify investor returns, using a centralized platform managed by system administrators in China. Wang admitted to receiving approximately US$100,000 from the scheme.
The charges against Wang amount to approximately S$1.8 million, highlighting the extent of the deception. Cases involving his alleged accomplices, including Dutch national Yang Bin—once listed by Forbes as China’s second-richest man—and Chinese national Lu Huangbin, are still ongoing.
