2 years’ jail for man involved in theft of cryptocurrencies worth over $8.8m

SINGAPORE – Three men engaged in a conspiracy in which cryptocurrencies worth over US$6.9 million (S$8.8 million) were stolen from the crypto wallet of trading platform SafeX Virtual Asset Exchange.

One of the men, Zhang Xinghua, laundered part of their ill-gotten gains by using a cryptocurrency mixer – a service that pools together many users’ cryptocurrencies to hide the sources and ownership of the funds.

The prosecution said Zhang would have gained more than US$886,000 in cryptocurrencies if not for the timely intervention of the police.

On March 11, the 38-year-old Chinese national was sentenced to two years’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one count each of being part of a conspiracy to misuse a computer system and dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct.

Through his wife, he made restitution of 0.890262 bitcoin – worth more than US$95,000 – to a cryptocurrency wallet address provided by the director of a company called DLT, which is SafeX’s operator, in February.

To date, the Singapore Police Force has seized and/or frozen about US$2.1 million worth of cryptocurrencies.

Around US$4.8 million in cryptocurrencies remains beyond its reach as this is in private wallets and wallets maintained by virtual asset service providers located outside of Singapore’s jurisdiction.

One of Zhang’s alleged accomplices is Singaporean Dai Yong, 36, whose case in pending.

Court documents stated that the third man, Singapore permanent resident Chen Chong Xin, 36, is still at large.

Deputy public prosecutors Matthew Choo and Gabriel Gan told the court the trio used to work for a company called King Coder.

It managed various platforms and accounts used in the operations of DLT’s businesses, including SafeX.

In or before May 2025, the relationship between the trio and DLT’s director broke down due to disputes over SafeX.

The three men stopped working for King Coder and decided to start a new company that would operate a trading platform similar to SafeX.

Before May 18, 2025, they met at Chen’s home to discuss how to obtain investments for their new company.

At another meeting, Chen told the other two men that he could obtain funds from SafeX.

“Zhang asked Chen how he was able to obtain the funds, but Chen informed him to not ask too much,” said the DPPs.

“As Zhang was still aggrieved about their departure from SafeX and their disputes with (the director), Zhang, together with Dai, agreed to Chen’s proposal.”

None of the three men was authorised to access SafeX’s cryptocurrency vaults.

However, Chen somehow managed to access the vaults on three occasions between June and August 2025, said the DPPs.

He transferred cryptocurrencies worth over US$6.9 million to different wallets.

The court heard that Zhang had earlier provided Chen with details of his wife’s Binance cryptocurrency account.

The account received a portion of the ill-gotten gains.

Chen later told Zhang that using the Binance account could be risky as the funds could be “easily traced”.

The DPPs said Chen then asked Zhang to find a better method of obfuscating the flow of cryptocurrencies taken from SafeX.

Zhang then researched a cryptocurrency mixer known as Tornado Cash.

In July 2025, he deposited cryptocurrencies worth over US$1.1 million into Tornado Cash.

The following month, he made another deposit worth more than US$523,000.

The offences came to light on Aug 13, 2025, when technical engineers told the DLT director about an error alarm triggered by SafeX’s system.

The alarm indicated that SafeX’s vault balances were low – less than US$50,000.

The director then discovered that somebody had gained unauthorised access to SafeX’s vaults on three occasions.

He made a police report on Aug 22, 2025, and Zhang was arrested four days later.