Hanoi police on Thursday launched legal proceedings against Than Van Thoai, vice director of Global BBA company, and seven others for their involvement in a billion-dollar illegal cryptocurrency ring.

They are charged with “violating regulations on multi-level business”.

Thoai, 40, was accused of helming a cryptocurrency ring with multi-marketing schemes that hosted hundreds of thousands of accounts, potentially worth billions of U.S. dollars.

According to investigators, in 2019, Thoai bought the CashBack Pro (CBP) foreign cryptocurrency project from a foreign partner to facilitate his business activities.

Through his connections with foreigners, he created virtual transactions and advertised the CBP cryptocurrency on certain websites, as well as developing applications where users can gain commissions as CBP coins.

Thoai also created Speeding.vip website to call for investments, and developed systems to convert commissions into cryptocurrency. He created the CBP Wallet to provide CBP coins under multi-marketing schemes.

He then advertised the project, saying participants could get commissions directly and bonuses if they could connect with the community or open their own investment accounts in the network.

Authorities said Thoai established Global BBA company to organize training and advertising events.

The company did not obtain a license for multi-marketing business, yet he still directed his subordinates to organize conferences at the company’s headquarters in Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan district on financial management, how to get rich, and the benefits of CBP coin and participation in the Speeding.vip community.

Several policies were introduced by Thoai’s group to attract investors, such as paying 0.5% in interest per day, commissions of 12-50%, and other bonuses.

Investors would be provided packages with different values, ranging from $1,000 to $100,000, and packages with higher values would generate better bonuses.

Each person looking to participate in the network would either introduce two others, or open two accounts himself/herself.

From March 2021 to June 2024, Thoai and his accomplices were accused of creating investment communities with hundreds of thousands of accounts, with the values of investment packages amounting to tens of billions of U.S. dollars.

Previously, in May 2024, Thoai and Ho Quoc Anh, chairman of BBI Vietnam Internet Technology JSC, were also put under an investigation for appropriation of property using a computer network, a telecommunications network, and electronic devices.