Beijing court jails two for selling 900M personal records

The Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing announced on May 7 that two men were sentenced to a combined 150 months in prison and fined about 120,000 yuan after being convicted of selling more than 900 million personal records through a searchable database that accepted cryptocurrency payments.

The court identified the defendants by surname as Lin and Wang and found them guilty of infringing citizens’ personal information and illegal use of information networks. Lin was credited with obtaining more than 600 million records and received a seven-year prison term and a 70,000 yuan fine. Wang was found to have collected over 300 million records and was sentenced to five years and six months and fined 50,000 yuan. A third suspect in the case is being handled separately, the court announcement said.

Court documents describe the operation as a “social engineering” database used to look up identities, addresses and social media accounts. The defendants operated a website that contained about 170 million searchable records, which the court said was accessed more than 100,000 times and used to retrieve personal information on over 1,300 occasions.

China’s Supreme People’s Court publicized the ruling and issued guidance that identifies four personal-data offenses. The notice warns that stolen personal information is being used to carry out fraud, extortion and doxxing attacks and states that prosecutions of personal-data crimes will increase under existing laws.

Authorities noted the suspects accepted cryptocurrency as payment. Criminal investigations in several countries have linked leaked personal data to extortion and kidnappings targeting crypto holders. Prosecutors in France have charged dozens of suspects in connection with organized kidnappings tied to exposed records, and investigators there describe a multinational criminal network exploiting leaked personal data.

Industry and security firms report rising losses from crypto theft. One analysis estimated total crypto theft at $3.4 billion in 2025 and found that compromises of personal wallets accounted for a growing share of stolen value. Regulators and data protection representatives have reported hundreds of affected services and tens of millions of compromised accounts after several large breaches. Some hacking groups have claimed to hold customer details from crypto-related services, and at least one hardware wallet company disclosed an incident tied to a third-party payment processor that led to customers receiving letters implying their home addresses were known.

The Haidian court sentences and the Supreme People’s Court notice come as authorities in multiple countries increase scrutiny of data brokers and cybercriminal networks and announce stepped-up enforcement actions.