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Chinese Police Bust World Cup Gambling Ring With More Than $1 Billion In Cryptocurrency (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Chinese authorities have arrested six suspects behind a World Cup gambling ring that was hosting more than 10 billion yuan -- or $1.5 billion USD -- worth of cryptocurrency bets, according to a statement released yesterday by the police department in Guangdong province. The gambling syndicate ran on the dark web, accepting bets in the form of bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin for an eight-month stretch before being apprehended. It attracted more than 300,000 players from different countries, and 8,000 "agents" who earned commissions for recruiting new members through a pyramid scheme-like system, according to the South China Morning Post. The bust that took down the dark web syndicate was a part of China's larger plans to stem the criminal activity -- though this was the first to involve cryptocurrency, according to Guangdong law enforcement. Thus far, they've arrested 540 suspects and frozen more than 260 million yuan as a part of their efforts.
It says 10 billion yuan. Is the yuan fictional?
Yes. That translates to "10 billion units of cash."
The Chinese yuan is called the renminbi. As in, 10 billion renminbi.
American yuan is called the US dollar. As in, 1.5 billion US dollars.
If you go to China and try to pay for lunch by bartering chickens, and the shopkeeper insists on being paid yuan, that doesn't mean he only accept renminbi; he might very happily accept dollars, or any other type of yuan that is convertible to renminbi.