You receive USDT, send it on to whatever address you're given, and keep a small cut of each transfer. A case published on the website of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) describes the same thing under the name paofen: using accounts in your own name to receive and move someone else's money in exchange for a fee. If the money you pass along comes from fraud or another crime, you become a link in the chain that moves it, and you could be prosecuted for assisting information network criminal activities, for concealing or disguising criminal proceeds, or for money laundering.
- In the SPP case, paofen means providing personal accounts to receive money, helping move it on, and profiting from it. Swap the bank card for an exchange account or a wallet address and the steps stay the same: money comes in, money goes out, you get paid.
- The judicial interpretation on the assisting offense from China's Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate lists a clearly abnormal transaction price or method as a circumstance from which a court can find that you knew. If you get paid every time you pass a transfer along, work out what that money is buying before you accept.
What does a daily-paid USDT forwarding job actually have you do?
Recruiters can dress it up in many ways, but what lands on you comes down to three actions: money arrives in your bank account, exchange account or wallet address; you withdraw it, transfer it, or convert it to USDT and send it to an address on the other side's instructions; and you keep the share you agreed on. You don't need to understand crypto, and you don't need to put up any money of your own.
An article from the Procuratorial Daily's Mingjing Weekly, published on the SPP website on April 2, 2024, describes paofen as providing a personal bank account to receive money, helping move it on, and profiting from it. The case in that article used bank cards: once the money was withdrawn, it was moved further by buying and reselling crypto. Receiving and forwarding USDT simply swaps one stage of that chain for USDT.
Why does it have to be your account? According to the article, the money showed clear signs of being split up and passed through the bank accounts of the group run by a man surnamed Li, and through further layers of accounts, to be laundered. Investigators also found that some victims' money went straight into the suspects' bank accounts. Whoever's account the money enters, that's the name on the transaction record.
How a request to borrow your card for crypto trading pulls you into paofen
Wang, a defendant in the Xingshan case, told prosecutors that in October 2022 Li said he wanted to borrow Wang's bank card for crypto investing, passed Wang's account details to someone, and had Wang put 1 yuan into it to test the card. After that, money started coming in. When it arrived, Wang withdrew it at a designated ATM and handed it to Li, or transferred it to an account Li named, and then someone paid him. Wang was one of the 10 defendants sentenced when the case was finally decided.
What sentences did the 10 defendants in Hubei's Xingshan paofen case get?
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| March 2022 | Li learned from others that providing personal bank accounts to receive money and help move it on (known as paofen) could be profitable, and that he could also make money afterwards by reselling crypto |
| May 2022 | Li organized more than 10 people, including Wang, to provide bank accounts that received the proceeds of online crime; once the money arrived they withdrew it and handed it to him or transferred it to accounts he named, and he moved it further by reselling crypto |
| By the time the case broke | Li's group had helped move more than 8.3 million yuan |
| June 30, 2023 | The Xingshan County procuratorate in Hubei province charged Li with concealing or disguising criminal proceeds; Li voluntarily admitted guilt and accepted the proposed punishment |
| First trial | Li was sentenced to 3 years and 1 month in prison and fined 6,000 yuan |
| Appeal and protest | Li appealed, saying he didn't know the money he helped move was fraud proceeds; prosecutors treated this as going back on his guilty plea and filed a protest against the verdict |
| Final ruling | The Yichang Intermediate People's Court raised Li's sentence to 4 years in prison and a 10,000-yuan fine; the other 9 defendants received between 1 year and 2 years 2 months in prison, each with a fine of 2,000 to 5,000 yuan |
Reviewing the case file, prosecutors grew suspicious. They found the group combined organized offenders, complex money flows, and crypto trading layered on top of paofen, so they directed the police to investigate further. While reviewing the case for prosecution, prosecutors explained to the suspects how the assisting offense differs from concealing or disguising criminal proceeds, and in the end charged them with the latter.
Three offenses a paofen job can fall under in Chinese criminal law
Which offense applies depends on where the money came from, how much you knew, and what you did.
| Offense | What decides it | Rules most relevant to moving USDT for others |
|---|---|---|
| Assisting information network criminal activities (Article 287-2 of the Criminal Law) | Whether you knew others were using information networks to commit crimes, whether you helped, and whether the circumstances were serious, weighed together | The SPC and SPP interpretation on this offense lists serious circumstances that include helping three or more parties, payment and settlement totaling 200,000 yuan or more, and illegal gains of 10,000 yuan or more |
| Concealing or disguising criminal proceeds and their gains (Article 312 of the Criminal Law) | Told apart from the assisting offense by what you knew and how clearly you knew it, and by the type and method of help you gave | The Xingshan case was charged and decided under this offense |
| Money laundering (Article 191 of the Criminal Law) | The underlying crime must fall into one of seven categories, and you knew or should have known the money came from one of them | Moving or converting criminal proceeds and their gains through virtual asset trading or financial asset exchange counts as one of the methods of laundering |
On the assisting offense: when the Supreme People's Court released the joint opinions of the SPC, the SPP and the Ministry of Public Security on handling criminal cases of assisting information network criminal activities, it said cases involving phone cards and bank cards made up roughly 80% of all assisting-offense cases. The opinions add several more serious circumstances, such as selling or renting out three or more of your own bank or payment accounts when 300,000 yuan or more has flowed into them. They also require authorities to first verify whether the share of those inflows tied to the helped party's suspected crimes meets the relevant threshold. The opinions name bank accounts, payment accounts, phone cards, IoT cards and internet accounts. Virtual currency isn't on that list, so how the rules apply to exchange accounts depends on the facts of each case.
If you go beyond lending your own accounts and also buy up accounts for others or recruit people to provide them, and you either planned this with the upstream group in advance or worked with it in a fairly stable arrangement, the opinions say you are to be punished as an accomplice in telecom and online fraud or related crimes.
On money laundering: the current SPC and SPP judicial interpretation on money laundering (Fa Shi [2024] No. 10), in force since August 20, 2024, adds virtual asset trading to the methods of laundering. But the underlying crime is limited to seven categories: drug crimes, organized crime of a mafia-like nature, terrorist crimes, smuggling, embezzlement and bribery, crimes that disrupt financial regulation, and financial fraud. Ordinary fraud isn't among them. The Xingshan case moved money taken from fraud victims and was charged and decided as concealing or disguising criminal proceeds, which is consistent with that list. Where the same conduct amounts to both money laundering and concealing criminal proceeds, it is punished as money laundering.
As for USDT itself, Notice Yinfa [2026] No. 42, issued by eight government departments, states that virtual currencies such as bitcoin, ether and tether (USDT) are not legal tender and should not and cannot circulate as money in the market. The notice also directs law enforcement and judicial authorities to crack down hard, in line with the law, on fraud, money laundering and other crimes involving virtual currency.
Saying you didn't know the money was dirty rarely holds up
Whether you knew isn't judged by what you say. The joint opinions require it to be assessed as a whole, taking in when, how and how often you helped, whether you dodged oversight, how much you gained illegally, and your own level of understanding and past experience. They also say that being wrong about what kind of online crime was involved doesn't prevent a finding that you knew: if you thought the other side was running online gambling but the money you handled was fraud proceeds, that misunderstanding won't help you.
The law lets a court find you knew in these situations
- Your pay is clearly out of proportion to what you do, or the way the transfers are made is clearly unusual. This matches the clearly abnormal transaction price or method listed in the SPC and SPP interpretation on the assisting offense.
- They have you use someone else's identity, talk only through encrypted chat, or delete records after each transfer. This matches the interpretation's wording on frequently using concealed internet access, encrypted communication, data destruction or false identities to evade oversight or investigation.
- Your bank card or payment account was restricted or suspended over suspected fraud or other irregularities, and you switched to another account and carried on.
- They coached you in advance to tell the bank or police that you were trading crypto yourself or buying for a friend. The joint opinions describe this as preparing scripted answers ahead of an investigation.
Each of these comes with the same caveat: unless there is evidence to the contrary.
In the Xingshan case, Li admitted guilt and accepted punishment at first trial, then appealed after the verdict. His argument was that he had been investing in crypto, didn't know the money he helped move was fraud proceeds, and had been sentenced too harshly. Prosecutors found that neither the evidence nor the facts had changed and filed a protest. The appeals court rejected his arguments one by one and raised his sentence from 3 years and 1 month to 4 years.
How do you get out if you've already forwarded USDT for someone?
- Stop receiving and stop sending, starting now. If money someone else sent is still sitting in your account, don't move it on their instructions, and don't spend it yourself.
- Don't delete anything. Keep your chat history, the other side's accounts, every address they gave you, and the time, amount and transaction hash of every incoming and outgoing transfer. Destroying data is itself one of the circumstances used to find that you knew, so deleting anything only makes your position harder to explain.
- Don't bring anyone else in. Recruiting or introducing others to provide accounts can be treated as taking part in the fraud as an accomplice, and organizing or using minors or students to do it is punished severely.
- See a licensed lawyer before deciding how to explain things to the police. The circumstances the joint opinions list for possible leniency include being tricked into the crime, taking part only briefly and gaining little, admitting guilt and accepting punishment, and actively helping the authorities track down the related online crimes in a way that proves important. Where the circumstances are minor, the result can be a decision not to prosecute or an exemption from criminal punishment. Bring the records you kept in the previous step when you see the lawyer.
Once you've admitted guilt and accepted punishment, think hard before backing out. Li in the Xingshan case did exactly that, and it added 11 months to his first-trial sentence and raised his fine from 6,000 to 10,000 yuan.
If your account gets frozen and someone contacts you offering to unfreeze it for a fee, treat it as a second scam. How to spot one is covered in our page on USDT recovery scams.
What happens to the commission you earned, and to students who got pulled in?
Should I give back the commission I earned for moving USDT?
If you plan to come forward, it's best to return it at the same time. In the Xingshan case, prosecutors steered the suspects toward voluntarily handing over their illegal gains while the investigation was still under way. For anyone prosecuted for money laundering, the 2024 judicial interpretation on money laundering lists actively helping to recover the criminal proceeds, together with a truthful confession and remorse, as grounds for a lighter sentence. Ask a lawyer how to return it, and don't send the money to anyone who contacts you offering to make the problem go away.
What happens to students who get pulled into this?
The joint opinions call for leniency toward minors in line with the law, and conduct that is plainly minor and causes little harm is not treated as a crime. Students still in school can be handled the same way, with leniency as appropriate. On the other hand, anyone who organizes or uses minors or students to commit these crimes is to be punished severely. When the Supreme People's Court introduced the opinions, it said more than 80% of defendants in assisting-offense cases were under 35, and one third were under 25.
Keep reading
- Paid to like and rate? The step where this side job starts taking your money—the kind of side job that has you put money into the platform first.
- I just got scammed. What do I do right now?—the evidence section helps you organize the records you already have.
- Scam self-check—run the message that recruited you through it.