Taiwan’s judicial department has revealed in its investigation into the “88 Club” money laundering case that the “Money Laundering Godfather” Tu Cheng-wen used a jewelry store as a cover to assist gambling and telecom fraud groups in money laundering activities through a cryptocurrency exchange. In November 2023, Chang Yu-ting, the operating director of the cryptocurrency exchange “Bitgin,” was also detained. In 2024, Bitgin announced that it would no longer serve individual accounts and would transition to serving only corporate accounts, setting a precedent in Taiwan for a cryptocurrency exchange to transform into exclusively serving corporate accounts.
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Bitgin’s Transformation Announcement: Specializing in Corporate Accounts, No Longer Accepting Personal Deposits
Bitgin Strengthens Scrutiny of Specific Individual Accounts
Bitgin Restricts Withdrawals for General Individual Accounts to Polygon
Bitgin’s Personal Services will be Discontinued
Bitgin Previously Stated Cooperation with the Investigation
Bitgin’s announcement states that after careful consideration, it will soon transform into a cryptocurrency exchange specializing in serving corporate clients. It is committed to providing more professional and customized services for corporate customers.
Bitgin’s announcement states that accounts of individual clients currently under “strengthened scrutiny” will temporarily have their trading, withdrawal, and login functions suspended. These functions will be reopened after the enhanced scrutiny is completed to facilitate the withdrawal of remaining assets.
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It is speculated that this measure may be taken to cooperate with the investigation of specific high-risk accounts.
Bitgin’s announcement states that general individual accounts can withdraw their New Taiwan Dollar and cryptocurrency assets on the platform through the Bitgin website or app before January 31, 2024. However, when withdrawing Tether (USDT), only withdrawals on the Polygon network are supported, and withdrawal requests on other types of chains will be automatically rejected by the system.
Bitgin’s announcement states that after 12:00 a.m. on February 1, 2024, a snapshot of all user balances will be taken and subsequent withdrawal methods will be notified through email.
Based on legal requirements, Bitgin has the obligation to retain customer personal information for five years after account closure, and it will be deleted thereafter.
In November 2023, Chain News asked Daniel, the CEO of Bitgin Technology, for comments. He stated that Jasmine, the operating director, was under investigation by the judicial department last week due to a transaction between Bitgin and a corporate account at the end of 2021. Bitgin wants to make it clear that since March 2022, when KGI Bank notified that the transaction counterparty may be involved in money laundering activities, immediate action has been taken to cease all transactions with that corporate account and actively report the transaction records during that period to relevant authorities. Bitgin has unfortunately been implicated in this case and is fully cooperating with the investigation by the judicial department, hoping to clarify the facts and prove its innocence as soon as possible.
Now, Bitgin has announced its transformation into exclusively serving corporate accounts, and it is not difficult to imagine the impact of this incident on the company’s operations.
(Chasing “88 Club” Taiwan Money Laundering Godfather Network: Operating Director of Bitgin Cryptocurrency Exchange Detained)
(Taiwan VASP Association Preparatory Team Responds to Members’ Involvement in the Case: Temporarily Not Participating in Operations, Clarifying Presumption of Innocence)
88 Club
Bitgin
Money laundering
Further Reading
Chasing “88 Club” Taiwan Money Laundering Godfather Network: Operating Director of Bitgin Cryptocurrency Exchange Detained
Why Did the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office Refuse to Accept Over 6 Million USDT in Confiscated Funds from Main Suspect Guo Zhe-min of the “88 Club”?