Taiwanese court convicts spies paid in crypto by China

Taiwan’s high court convicted eight people of espionage for China, revealing that crypto was used to facilitate payments in one of the most prominent spying cases in recent years.

Bloomberg reports, citing Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, that Chinese intelligence used cryptocurrency to pay Taiwanese military personnel involved in a major espionage case.

According to the report, Taiwan’s high court has convicted eight individuals, including active-duty and retired military officers, for collecting state secrets on behalf of China, what the report describes as “one of the largest espionage cases in years.” The report does not clarify which cryptocurrency was used for payments or if a third-party provider facilitated the transactions.

The court handed down sentences ranging from one-and-a-half years to 13 years in prison. The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau disclosed that these individuals were recruited by the Chinese Communist Party to gather military intelligence, with “virtual currency” being used to facilitate payments. Despite the ban on cryptocurrency trading in China, this case highlights the intelligence agencies’ continued use of digital assets for covert operations.

China signals interest in crypto for espionage

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

As the U.S. Department of Justice revealed earlier, Chinese intelligence officers paid bribes in Bitcoin (BTC) to a U.S. government employee to steal documents related to the prosecution of a China-based telecommunications company, believed to be Huawei. In that case, Chinese agents used Bitcoin, and blockchain analytics revealed that the spies utilized privacy-enhancing tools like Wasabi Wallet to obscure their transaction trail.