Taiwanese court convicts spies paid in crypto by China

Taiwan’s High Court has convicted eight people of spying for China, finding cryptocurrencies were used to facilitate payments in one of the most high-profile espionage cases in recent years.

Chinese intelligence paid Taiwanese military personnel involved in a major espionage case with cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reported, citing the Taiwan Justice Ministry’s Investigation Bureau.

The report said Taiwan’s top court convicted eight people, including active-duty and retired soldiers, of collecting state secrets for China, marking “one of the largest espionage cases in years.” The report did not say what cryptocurrency was used for payments or whether the transactions were facilitated by a third-party provider.

The court sentenced them to between one and a half and 13 years in prison. The Justice Ministry’s Bureau of Investigation said the men were recruited by the Chinese Communist Party to gather military intelligence and used “virtual money” to facilitate payments. Despite a ban on cryptocurrency trading in China, this case highlights how intelligence agencies continue to use digital assets for covert operations.

China Shows Interest in Crypto for Espionage

China banned all crypto transactions in 2021, citing concerns about financial stability and crime prevention. However, the use of cryptocurrencies in the latest espionage case suggests that Chinese intelligence officers continue to exploit the anonymity and ease of cross-border transactions offered by digital assets.

As previously revealed by the US Department of Justice, Chinese intelligence officers bribed a US government employee with Bitcoin (BTC) to steal documents related to the prosecution of a China-based telecommunications company believed to be Huawei. In that case, the Chinese agents used Bitcoin, and blockchain analytics revealed that the spies used privacy-enhancing tools like Wasabi Wallet to hide their transaction trails.