Woman Who Stole $5.7m in Crypto Gets Jail for Contempt of Court

She spent $840,000 on a lavish lifestyle despite injunctions not to use the funds stolen from firm

- Selina Lum

A woman who cheated a company out of US$4.2 million (S$5.7 million) worth of cryptocurrency was ordered by a civil court not to use the funds.

But Ho Kai Xin disobeyed the court orders issued in October 2022 and spent close to $840,000 on payments for a freehold penthouse and on Louis Vuitton luxury goods from November to December that year.

For flouting the High Court orders, the 32-year-old woman was handed six weeks' jail for contempt of court on Jan 27.

Ho currently faces both civil and criminal court proceedings over the stolen crypto. She had earlier pleaded guilty to criminal charges and is awaiting sentencing by a district court.

The six-week jail term arose out of a High Court civil case that the company, ByBit Fintech, filed against Ho to recover the stolen cryptocurrency.

From June 2022, Ho used the stolen monies to live a lavish lifestyle.

In October that year, the company obtained court orders to freeze her assets, but Ho breached the injunctions by continuing to spend the stolen funds.

ByBit is a Seychellois company which owns and operates a cryptocurrency exchange of the same name.

Ho was employed by WeChain Fintech, which provided payroll services for ByBit.

She owned four electronic wallet addresses, each on different crypto platforms, and six bank accounts.

Ho was the only person responsible for maintaining spreadsheets which contained details of the salaries that were to be paid to 800 to 900 ByBit employees.

ByBit paid its employees in both fiat currencies and in cryptocurrency.

Crypto payment was made primarily in Tether, also known as USDT, a stablecoin with its value pegged to the US dollar.

Each month, Ho would update the spreadsheets according to instructions that she received from various parties within ByBit.

The spreadsheet for crypto payment contained each employee's designated wallet address.