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

According to reports, a Beijing prosecutor has approved the arrest of Li Qunan, a former director of a big data company that is listed. He is accused of fraudulently acquiring funds to buy bitcoin mining rigs. According to company filings with Shanghai Stock Exchange the director Li Qunnan is accused of embezzling approximately $8 million (55.53 millions yuan).

One report in Chinese states that Qunan, a former chairman, Zhongchang Big Data was alleged to have misused funds while he was a senior executive. Zhongchang Big Data stated that it became aware of the director’s illegal activities only when the company’s new management conducted an ‘inspection on the subsidiary companies in order to standardize corporate governance’.

Qunnan was found to be the one responsible for misappropriating funds. The former director, it is claimed, sent Zhongchang executives a statement in which he refuted the allegations.

Companies use company funds to pay hosting fees

Qunnan denied the allegations, but Zhongchang executives insist that he is responsible and have provided evidence to back their claims. The executives claim that their company purchased’servers’ for $4.1 million between January and September 2021. However, these servers do not appear on the company’s books. The report stated that the servers were ‘Whatsminer mining machines (model: M31S76T44W), supercomputing servers (model S10Pro).’

Zhongchang claimed that Zhongchang paid for the bitcoin mining machines and also paid the hosting fees, which totalled $3.8million.

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