Six people have been charged in China over a cold-call cryptocurrency investment fraud.

After an investigation by the Procuratorate in lian Yungang, a city in east China’s Jiangsu Province allege that six men duped over 10900 investors into handing over ¥320 million (around US$45 million) believing that they were generating significant profit.

From 2015, victims were said to have been persuaded to invest cryptocurrency called ‘GGP’ in a legitimate-seeming firm called ‘Global win-win Token’, which had a website, call center and sales staff. Members can turn their GGP token on BTC100, a bitcoin online trading platform (which has stopped running) into cash.

The victims were allegedly lured into making a trial investment, with promises of high returns after they had invested more funds. They were provided website accounts where they could monitor the growth of their investment over the trial period.

Scammers promoted “GGP win-win token” project through the Internet, and set up a technology company to cover up the scam. Among the scammers, there are experts who have been engaged in the financial industry, experienced people who have invested in cryptocurrency, senior intellectuals who have served as university professors. They have offices in the core areas of developed areas such as Chaoyang District and Fengtai District in Beijing. They created a professional operation mode like a regular company with product department, technology department, customer service department. They also provided regular financial knowledge training for their employees.

In order to lure more people to participate, the scammers cheated the investors under the cloak of “blockchain”, and a series of demagogic propaganda such as “cryptocurrency era”, “new round of revolution of technology”. Considering that “blockchain” is a word relatively unfamiliar to most people in China, the scammers held “Internet finance” forums to deceive some media giants to help conduct propaganda, even used the slogan of “Digital China” to confuse the victims under the guise of official voice.

The scam created a closed blockchain-like trading mode where the members make profits from luring more victims in, and then turned their GGP token in the Bitcoin trading platform into cash. The six individuals from Beijing have now been charged with fraud and organizing Ponzi scheme on 25, September.