A Vietnamese migrant worker surnamed Su has been charged in Taiwan for allegedly acting as a private crypto dealer and using the OKX C2C platform to handle large amounts of USDT and convert them into Vietnamese dong. Local reporting said the case involved about NT$500 million. Prosecutors said he failed to verify the source and destination of the crypto, did not confirm the true identity of buyers, and kept no required transaction records. He was indicted for illegally providing virtual asset services and for special money laundering offenses under Taiwan's Anti-Money Laundering Act, with prosecutors seeking a three-year prison sentence and a fine.
Profit was small per trade, volume was not
According to the report, Su told prosecutors that he earned NT$1,200 each time he handled 100,000 USDT. His total gain from exchange-rate spreads was said to be about NT$200,000. The prosecution focus was not just the margin on each transaction. It was the fact that he repeatedly arranged crypto-to-fiat conversions as an individual while failing to carry out basic customer checks or preserve transaction records, a gap that prosecutors treated as a core compliance failure.
Why the case was not handled as a standard underground remittance offense
The report drew a distinction between this case and recent underground remittance prosecutions. Prosecutor Dai Min-yan of the Taichung District Prosecutors Office told United Daily News that the Banking Act provisions on illegal underground exchange apply only to conversions between fiat currencies. In this case, the transaction path involved USDT and Vietnamese dong rather than fiat-to-fiat exchange alone. Under Article 125 of the Banking Act, pure underground fiat remittance can bring a sentence of more than seven years. Because crypto sat in the middle of the flow here, prosecutors pursued the case under anti-money laundering rules instead.
OKX had already removed TWD C2C pairs
The source also noted that OKX suspended C2C trading in New Taiwan dollars for users in Taiwan on June 24, 2024, after tighter scrutiny of individual crypto dealers. Even so, foreign currency pairs such as Vietnamese dong, Indonesian rupiah, and Philippine peso remained available on the platform. That left room for cross-border exchange activity tied to migrant worker remittance needs.
The report said many migrant workers help friends or fellow nationals send money home, often starting from a practical need. But once a private dealer stops checking customer identity and does not verify fund origins, the channel can be used to hide proceeds linked to fraud. This case shows how missing records and weak controls in crypto-linked off-platform exchange activity can become a criminal issue on their own.