Jerry Yu studies at New York University, is 23 years old, and is one of many Chinese nationals residing in the United States. Nothing strange so far. But in the past few days, Yu has made numerous headlines in international media and—certainly to his chagrin—has become the most visible face of a controversial practice: tricks used by Chinese citizens to move money to the U.S. to evade surveillance by both countries.

The reason: Despite his young age, Yu is the majority owner of the Texas Bitcoin mine, which was purchased last year for more than six million dollars.

Student and rich (crypto) miner. The Jerry Yu case revealed this New York Times It attracts attention both with its details and, above all, with what it shows us. After all, as the New York newspaper recalled, this is an example of how Chinese citizens can transfer money from China to the United States, avoiding the radar of authorities in both countries.

Yu is a 23-year-old Chinese national who attended NYU, studied in Connecticut, and lives in an apartment purchased for $8 million from Jeffrey R. Immelt, a former director of General Electric. To his fellow citizens, he represents what is often called the “rich second generation.” But if he rose to fame, it was from another angle: that of a Bitcoin mine owner in Texas.

A mine worth six million. Theirs is not just any kind of exploitation. Yu is the majority owner of a Bitcoin mine in Texas that was purchased last year for $6 million. However, the payment was made in cryptocurrencies, not official US currency. The transaction was carried out through a tool that offers anonymity and a non-territorial exchange; don’t forget TNYTIt makes it difficult to know the source of financing.

Yu’s company is called BitRush Inc, or BytesRush, and its mine is located in Channing, a small town of fewer than 300 people in the Panhandle, Texas. There, in an open field, are dozens of buildings equipped with 6,000 computers dedicated to mining Bitcoin.

Contractor complaints. Yu’s work might have gone unnoticed if not for complaints from Channing’s contractors who said they weren’t getting paid for all their work. The lawsuits have focused attention on crypto mining and brought to light transactions that normally would not come to light.

In one of the cases involving Yu, Crypton Mining Solutions assures that investors in the mine “were not only Chinese citizens” and that “citizens with very influential political and business positions” were also behind it, but there is no evidence of such connections and traces of money from Binance It goes up to .

Yu’s investors used a cryptocurrency called Tether, which was added to the routing through the Binance offshore exchange, making it impossible to know the origin of the capital. TNYT It goes further and ensures that Binance’s offshore operations did not comply with US banking regulations when the transaction was made. At the end of November, the company’s then-chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, resigned for failing to take measures to prevent money laundering. The company also agreed to pay a fine of 4.3 billion lira.

Because does it matter? If the case of Yu and BitRush is interesting, it is not just because of its details and summaries. Yu unintentionally became an example of how Chinese citizens could move their money from their country to the United States; it evaded checks by authorities in both nations and avoided the scrutiny that a typical transaction with a bank that would know about it would require. It will inform the Treasury about the source of funds and suspicious activities.

Like? Thanks to a system that offers them anonymity and makes it difficult to trace the source of funds, Chinese investors are able to evade the control of the US banking system and the scrutiny of federal regulators. There are also restrictions on the outflow of funds from China itself, which has intensified its campaign against cryptocurrencies in 2021 and even declared the transactions and mining of such currencies illegal. Mines allow them to produce cryptocurrencies, primarily Bitcoin, and then exchange them for US dollars.

Cover images: Kanchanara (Unsplash) And Nicolas Henderson (Flickr)

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