Director of Listed Chinese Company Embezzles $8 Million, Uses Funds to Purchase Bitcoin Mining Rigs – Regulation Bitcoin News

According to reports, a Chinese prosecutor gave a thumbs-up to the arrest and detention of Li Qunan, a director of listed big data companies. He is accused of taking $8 million from the company to purchase bitcoin mining equipment. Executives insist that their evidence supports Li Qunan’s claims, despite him denying the accusations.

Director’s Unsanctioned Use of Funds Discovered in November 2021

Beijing’s prosecutor approved the arrest a former head of a large data business. The accused is accused of buying bitcoin mining machines with fraudulently obtained funds. According to the company’s filings with Shanghai Stock Exchange, the director, Li Qunnan, is alleged to have embezzled about $8 million (55.53 million yuan) from Zhongchang Big Data.

One Chinese language report claims that Qunan was the former chairman of Zhongchang Big Data. He is believed to have misappropriated funds as a senior executive at Zhongchang Big Data. Zhongchang Big Data claimed it only became aware of the director’s unsanctioned activities in November 2021 when the company’s new management carried out an “inspection of the subsidiary companies to standardize the corporate governance.”

Qunnan was found to be the one responsible for misappropriating money. The former director was reported to to have written a statement to Zhongchang officials in which he refuted the accusations.

Host Fees are paid with company funds

However, despite Qunnan’s denial, Zhongchang executives have insisted that he is the culprit and have produced evidence to support their assertion. For instance, the executives allege that between January to September 2021, their company paid for “servers” worth $4.1 million, but these do not appear in its books. Upon inspection, the servers were found to be “Whatsminer mining machine (model: M31S-76T44W), supercomputing server (model S10Pro),” the report said.

Besides paying for the bitcoin mining machines, Zhongchang claimed the former director also used the company’s funds to pay for the hosting fees which totalled $3.8 million.

Qunan, according to the report, has not cooperated with investigators. He is believed to currently be outside the country.

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Terence Zimwara

Terence Zimwara was a Zimbabwe Award-winning journalist and author. His writings have covered the economic problems of several African countries and how digital currency can offer an escape route.