China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Nov. 2 released a set of typical cases on the protection of citizens’ personal information, including a cross-border operation that combined fake recruitment, insider data theft, and virtual-currency settlement. The case involved Lin Moufeng and 20 others, who illegally obtained and sold more than 870,000 job seekers’ resumes to overseas buyers. Prosecutors said the total amount involved exceeded 7.46 million yuan, and every payment in the case was settled through virtual currency before being cashed out.
More than 870,000 resumes were sold overseas
According to the official release from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, judicial authorities punished a criminal network led by Lin Moufeng for infringing citizens’ personal information. The group collected large volumes of resume data in a short period and sold them to overseas buyers, with the total number of leaked records reaching more than 870,000.
The disclosed information said the resumes included names, contact details, and educational background. After judicial auditing and on-chain tracing, authorities determined that the case involved more than 7.46 million yuan. Rather than using ordinary bank transfers, the network built a concealed payment loop between overseas buyers and domestic data sources, making the money trail a central focus of the investigation.
From fake job postings to bribed HR insiders
Case details show that Lin had identified the illegal profit opportunity in trafficking job-seeker data as early as May 2024. He first attempted to register fake corporate entities on online recruitment platforms and obtain resumes directly through the hiring process. That approach ran into repeated platform bans because of questionable credentials and abnormal bulk activity.
After that, Lin recruited accomplices and split the operation into a “front-end traffic team” and a “back-end data team.” Front-end members posed as job candidates and approached HR staff at legitimate companies, offering payments on a per-record basis to turn some of them into insiders.
Those bribed HR employees used authorized company management accounts to pull applicant information from internal systems and sell it outward. The back-end team then issued standardized collection templates and aggregated the stolen resumes into a systematized supply chain for resale.
Crypto payments and underground OTC cash-out
At the settlement stage, the group used virtual currency for payment. After receiving batches of resume data, overseas purchasers paid in virtual currency and transferred tokens to blockchain addresses controlled by Lin, according to the case disclosure.
Once the crypto arrived, Lin brought in a dedicated cash-out intermediary identified as Ning. Prosecutors said Ning used the underground OTC market, splitting funds across multiple wallet addresses and applying obfuscation methods before gradually selling the assets and converting them into renminbi. The proceeds were then distributed among members of the network based on their share.
The official account said the structure was designed to exploit the cross-border nature of public blockchains and the anonymity-like cover associated with on-chain transfers, with the aim of severing the direct financial link between the upstream personal-information crime and the downstream illegal proceeds.
Authorities traced the on-chain and off-chain flow
Investigators combined blockchain tracing with offline financial evidence collection and identified the timestamps of the virtual-currency transactions as well as the final fiat destinations of the funds. That allowed authorities to pursue accountability across the full chain, from illegal data acquisition and overseas resale to the final cash-out and laundering stage.
The case, as presented by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, outlines a complete illicit chain involving fake recruitment, insider leaks at companies, overseas trafficking of personal data, and crypto-based settlement and redemption. It also shows that virtual currency did not prevent investigators from reconstructing the movement of funds when on-chain records were matched with offline evidence.
What the case highlights
The disclosure points to two clear risk areas. One is the abuse of HR management permissions inside companies, which allowed applicant information to be extracted in bulk and leaked. The other is the use of virtual currency for cross-border payment and later OTC redemption, which added a layer of concealment to the proceeds.
By publishing the case, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate set out its enforcement stance on both personal-information crimes and crypto-linked laundering activity. In this matter, authorities pursued the redemption channel by combining blockchain evidence with traditional financial tracing.
