JOHOR BAHRU, Sept 4 — Seven Chinese nationals pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court here today to charges of fraud for operating a fraudulent crypto investment scheme targeting Vietnamese victims in August.
Each accused was fined RM5,000 after pleading guilty before Magistrate Atifah Hazimah Wahab, after the charges were read in Mandarin.
The accused include Tan Wei Wei, 35; Xu Laiwu, 37; Ren Zilong, 25; Li Jiang, 31; Huang Yaolin, 27; Li Libo, 25, and Chen Hui, 31.
According to the charge sheet, the accused are charged with criminal conspiracy to operate a crypto investment application targeting Vietnamese citizens with the intention of deceiving and inducing the victims to hand over money for fraudulent purposes.
The offence was committed at a premises at Jalan Forest City 5, Pulau 1, Forest City in Tanjung Kupang near Gelang Patah, Iskandar Puteri here at 1.45pm on August 25.
For the offence, the seven men were charged under Section 120B(2) of the Penal Code for criminal conspiracy to commit an offence which carries a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.
All the accused, who were unrepresented, requested a lighter fine from the court.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nik Noratini Nik Azman asked the court to impose a proportionate sentence as a deterrent, taking into account the seriousness of the offence committed by all the accused.
The court then imposed the fine on each accused.
