The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office officially filed a lawsuit on April 26th. Following lawyer Wang Chen-huan’s appearance in court, the Taipei District Court held its first hearing on June 6th, where Lin Geng-hong denied the charges, emphasizing that the creation of virtual currency was meant for innovation in the highest standard and most rigorous manner, not for defrauding others.
Lin Geng-hong claimed to operate legally with a team of professionals who possessed high expertise. The defense lawyers argued that if there was a real intention to defraud, it wouldn’t be done in such a complicated manner. The prosecution accused them of fraud and concealing the flow of money.
According to reports from udn, Lin Geng-hong highlighted that the supervisors involved and the employees who wrote the white paper all had high professional knowledge and operated legally in the most stringent manner. Lin Geng-hong had previously sold virtual currencies such as IBcoin under the name “Qian Qiao Team,” which became the basis of his defense in this case.
He mentioned that a former prosecutor had informed him that virtual currencies could be traded, so he sought out the founder of the ABA accelerator, which received subsidies from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the top exchange advised by KPMG to professionally operate blockchain and virtual currency-related businesses.
In a video excerpted by Mirror News, Lin Geng-hong even made a defiant “YA” gesture when getting out of the prisoner’s vehicle. His lawyers emphasized that the IMBA community was not established as a criminal organization for committing fraud but had thorough records of all fund custody without any intent of concealment or disguise.
The prosecution alleged that Lin Geng-hong, Pan Yi-chang, Lin Ruo-qiao, and others knowingly promoted virtual currencies such as MOCT, CSO, FITC, NFTC, and BNAT, which were essentially just codes with low production costs and no practical application prospects. After listing the virtual currencies, they used the public’s lack of understanding of the principles and trading methods to establish IMBA’s direct sales team and branches for sales promotion. Through spreading false news and manipulating currency prices, they defrauded unspecified individuals into investing and purchasing, fraudulently obtaining over NT$800 million.
Lin Geng-hong and others instructed subordinates to transport and hide the illicit proceeds in various locations in Taipei and New Taipei City, totaling over NT$100 million. Part of the earnings was used to purchase and operate real estate in Yilan’s “Lotus Meditation Center” as one of the money laundering bases. Additionally, NT$43 million was delivered to Wang Chen-huan, with NT$26 million used as additional capital for the top exchange and NT$17 million as an investment in a law firm in Bangkok, creating breakpoints in the money flow to conceal and disguise specific criminal proceeds for money laundering.