16 people in the Hong Kong JPEX case have been formally charged, marking the first use of special provisions against virtual asset fraud.

[BitPush] There is new progress in the Hong Kong JPEX case.

According to reports from Hong Kong media, the police have officially indicted 16 individuals, and the case will be heard tomorrow at the Eastern District Court. Among the defendants, 6 are core personnel of JPEX, facing serious charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and obstructing justice. Additionally, 7 individuals come from over-the-counter cryptocurrency exchanges, and 3 are those who provided puppet accounts.

It is worth noting that the police have invoked a special offense in the “Regulations on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing” this time - “fraudulently or recklessly inducing others to invest in virtual assets.” This clause has been cited for the first time in an actual case.

So far, the police have arrested a total of 80 people, but there are still two masterminds and one key member at large, and Interpol has issued a red notice. The scale of this case is quite astonishing: over 2,700 people have been victimized, with losses exceeding 1.6 billion HKD. The good news is that the police have frozen approximately 228 million HKD in assets.

The police also revealed that a second round of prosecution actions cannot be ruled out. It seems this case is not over yet.