Is there still hope for probation after a programmer involved in a virtual coin casino case is arrested?

This article will explain how to achieve the ideal result of effective defense through specific strategies, in conjunction with a case handled by lawyer Shao Shiwei involving virtual coin settlement and the accusation of operating a casino.

Written by: Shao Shiwei, Mankun

Success Cases

In criminal cases, many parties and family members believe that a lawyer's job is to "argue based on reason and be eloquent." However, in some cases where the nature is clear and the sentencing range is limited, truly effective defense work often does not simply involve opposing the judicial authorities, but rather tests the lawyer's communication skills.

Especially in the context of the current system of plea bargaining, the sentencing recommendations from the prosecutor's office often play a crucial role in the final outcome of the case. At this stage, whether the lawyer can understand the mindset of the case handlers and comprehend the issues they genuinely care about in specific cases, and thus engage in professional communication based on finding common ground while reserving differences, often determines the direction of the case.

In other words, a lawyer's expertise is not only reflected in their mastery of legal theory but also in their ability to gain the trust of the case handlers. When a lawyer's opinion is recognized by the case handlers, it often means that there is room to seek leniency for the client.

So, how can we better understand the psychology of the case handlers? There is no standard answer, as it relies more on the accumulation of long-term case handling experience, but there are still some guidelines to follow. This article will illustrate, through the specific strategies used by lawyer Shao Shiwei in a case involving virtual coin settlement and the charge of operating a gambling house, how to advance towards the ideal result of effective defense.

A certain programmer is suspected of opening a casino related to "virtual currency payment settlement".

Several months ago, I took over a case involving the operation of a casino: the party involved is a programmer, accused of providing virtual currency payment Settlement services for multiple overseas gambling websites, suspected of constituting the crime of operating a casino.

According to the accusations from the public security organs, the programmer has helped multiple gambling platforms complete a total of over 400 million USDT in gambling fund settlement over the past two years, equivalent to approximately 2.7 billion RMB; his personal illegal profits amount to over 900,000 USDT, roughly 6 million RMB.

According to Article 303 of the Criminal Law regarding the crime of operating a casino, if the total amount of gambling funds reaches 300,000 yuan, or the illegal income exceeds 30,000 yuan, it is considered "serious circumstances" and is usually punishable by imprisonment for not less than five years and not more than ten years.

In the face of such a clearly defined case with clear data and a huge amount of money, what can a lawyer do? Where is the room for defense?

A "no witnesses" evidence dilemma

When I took over this case, the public security investigation phase had already come to an end, the evidence in the case had been collected, and the case had been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.

This article focuses on the communication work of lawyers during the prosecution stage, as the sentencing recommendations given by prosecutors have played a crucial role in the final sentence imposed by the court on the parties involved since the implementation of the plea bargain system.

After preliminary communication with the family, I learned that in this case, there are actually 2 other partners involved. The three of them contacted the gambling platform in the form of a studio and independently undertook the business. However, one partner has already passed away, and the other partner vanished after the incident. The party involved was arrested on the spot by police who had been waiting at the airport upon their return to the country.

From the perspective of the lawyer's defense, what is the division of labor among the three individuals? How was the profit distribution for the 900,000 given to USDT agreed upon? — This fact is crucial. The reason is that the parties were caught on the spot at the airport without any warning, so they cannot establish a surrender scenario. Besides the usual defense points such as the gambling capital and profit amount, only by striving for the recognition of being an accomplice may it be possible to reduce their sentence to less than 5 years.

But this is again a "case with no witnesses," quoting the original words of the case handler when questioning the parties involved, "Who knows if what you said is true? We only know that the contract logic is yours, and you were the one communicating with the gambling platform in the TG group. You say you have two partners, A has not been seen at all, and B has been dead for a long time, so is it not you who did it? No matter how we investigate, it’s only you!"

To be honest, even now, I still don't know whether the other 2 partners really exist. But for the lawyer's defense work, what the truth really is doesn't matter; what matters is how to fight for a lighter sentence for the client based on the existing evidence.

Can analyzing previous similar cases in the local area be helpful for this case?

In addition to the laws themselves, the local past judgment practices are also an important reference for constructing defense strategies. As I mentioned in my previous article "Different Verdicts in the Same Case? A Study on the Issue of 'Regional Jurisdiction' in Criminal Cases" ( (see the figure below) — it is not uncommon for the same offense to result in "different verdicts in the same case" in judicial practice across different regions.

I have conducted an in-depth search on cases related to "gambling offenses" + "virtual coin settlement" in the region in recent years, but the results are not optimistic. For example:

In the case of Chen and others, the defendants provided funding settlement for the gambling platform, with a total betting amount of over 90 million RMB, and all were sentenced to actual imprisonment.

In the case where Fang and others used an online gambling platform to set up a casino, although the defendant has withdrawn illegal gains amounting to 10 million yuan, he was still sentenced to more than five years in prison;

Additionally, based on the related cases handled by our team, some case handlers may believe that the use of virtual currency trading should be considered an aggravating circumstance for heavier penalties as referenced by the court.

After conducting in-depth research on relevant local cases, I have come to realize that in the judicial practice of this region, cases involving the establishment of casinos are basically "hard to escape imprisonment." Even more pessimistic is that, based on the existing evidence, this case cannot be defended from the perspective of "aiding and abetting"—because the parties involved do not have an employee status, and both the subjective awareness and intent to cooperate are evident, lacking the "auxiliary and subordinate" position.

Time is tight and the tasks are heavy. By the time I received the case files, the review and prosecution period had already passed by more than half. There’s no time to think too much about it; I’ll start with the first step of reviewing the files and get to work!

The Two Core Difficulties of the Case

The nearly thousand-page dossier and several dozen gigabytes of electronic data took me a full 5 days for a preliminary sorting.

There are two tricky aspects I consider in this case:

One is the aforementioned, the involved personnel in the case have "died without witnesses," so how can we determine the status and role of the parties involved in their gang in this case? Moreover, according to the description of the case by the public security agency in the case files, there is no mention of principal and accomplice, team members, and all the involved actions are attributed to just one person: interfacing with the gambling platform, constructing contract logic, using TG for communication, and controlling the wallet address, all completed by the party involved. Even the gambling website had no staff present at the case. This further intensifies the impression of the party involved "acting alone."

Another is the on-chain transaction data. This type of data inherently possesses public and objective qualities. Even if there are certain omissions by the public security organs during the statistical process, how much can be deducted from a total gambling fund of 2.7 billion and a profit amount of over 6 million?

Can you suggest continuing to capture other partners or platform personnel? Of course, suggestions can be made. However, these individuals have strong counter-surveillance capabilities and are highly likely not to be in the country. Based on the current mechanism for handling criminal cases, suggestions for cross-border evidence collection and arrests like this have almost no practical feasibility. Public security agencies generally do not go through complicated international cooperation procedures for this.

So I need to carefully think about my communication approach. When communicating with the prosecutor, what exactly should I say and how should I say it? How can I negotiate a reduced sentence for the client?

How to communicate? Is "stubborn persistence" useful?

In practice, there is a type of lawyer whose case-handling style is referred to as "die hard" lawyers in our industry. These lawyers often display a strong combative attitude when defending their clients. They typically adopt a style of "challenging, competing, refusing to compromise, not admitting defeat, and not giving up until achieving their goals," arguing fiercely over legal issues in the case. When communicating with case handlers, they are often sharp and confrontational, and even expose issues in the case online, leveraging social public opinion pressure to push the case in a different direction.

This style may indeed have a certain effect in some high-profile and controversial acquittal cases. However, in cases like this one, where the nature of the case has basically become clear and the focus of the dispute is concentrated on the sentencing range, a "stubborn fight" often not only proves ineffective but may also have the opposite effect—in the eyes of the judicial authorities, an improper attitude towards confession and poor communication can ultimately lead to a harsher sentencing result. We often encounter such situations in our case handling.

Does that mean that cases with clear qualifications, like the one in this case, can only "lie flat, follow the process, and plead guilty to receive punishment"? Of course not. In cases with clear qualifications, we can still adopt effective strategies for mitigating the offense to strive for a lighter outcome for the parties involved.

Of course, how to develop a defense strategy for mitigating the charges against the parties involved needs to be analyzed specifically based on the different cases. In addition to examining the evidence itself, it is also necessary to comprehensively consider the stage of the case, the individual personality and working style of the case handler, as well as their understanding of legal provisions and overall judgment of the facts of the case. Sometimes, the same case may present completely different outcomes in the hands of different case handlers.

Preliminary Confrontation with the Prosecutor

One morning, I had an appointment to communicate with the handling prosecutor. I arrived early and waited at the entrance of the procuratorate, but when I walked into his office, I was immediately struck by the heavy stack of case files on his desk.

He looked exceptionally busy, with the landline on the desk ringing one call after another, hanging up and ringing again, answering and then ringing again. I sat in the chair opposite, silently waiting—waiting for a suitable "interjection point."

The ringtone finally quieted down. He raised his head, glanced at me, and said straightforwardly: "This case has no disputes, so let's plead guilty and settle as soon as possible. The time is about right. We have many cases, and the court wants to prosecute them quickly."

I took the opportunity to ask the first question: "So regarding sentencing, what are your current considerations?"

He flipped through the case files and said impatiently, "He said the code was written by two partners? B has been dead for many years, how could it be written by B? You've seen the files, A has no trace in this case at all, we don't even know if this person exists, it's probably something he made up! With such a large amount, based on other cases we've handled, it should be at least 7 to 8 years in prison."

In this moment, I could clearly feel his tone of voice had a definite inclination - his view of the case was basically consistent with that of the public security organs.

To be honest, it's indeed the case just from the documents: he was the one who connected with the gambling platform; he was the one who set up the contract logic; and he still controls the wallet address (and it's not a multi-signature); in the TG chat records, he is the only one communicating with the platform. Although he claims to only receive a fixed salary, he also says that he hasn't distributed any profits over the years, and he can't even clarify who takes how much; moreover, in the initial few records, he didn't even mention the so-called partners at all.

In this case—without mentioning the prosecutor, how would any ordinary person think initially?

How to Achieve Effective Communication?

In fact, before meeting the prosecutor, I had repeatedly organized all the key evidence points of the case—one could say that I went to see him with clear communication goals and prepared content. His initial response was not unexpected.

Then, I started to ask questions about the case. The prosecutor initially did not take my opinions seriously, after all, in cases where there is a plea agreement + clear data, the case handlers usually tend to follow the process instinctively.

But then I said, if the prosecutor's office does not withdraw the investigation and just files the case like this, do you think the judge will ask the prosecutor's office to continue supplementing the evidence? Just that one sentence made him noticeably stunned, and then he immediately put down what he was working on, took out his notebook, and started to take notes.

In fact, it seems that there is no dispute over the classification of this case, but there are quite a few bugs both in substance and procedure. For example, the process for the judicial disposal and realization of virtual currency, the calculation methods for the amount involved, and the determination methods, etc. Furthermore, if the defendant is easily designated as the principal offender, there could be some aftereffects. If the defense insists on seeking a withdrawal of the investigation, it would also pose a headache for the prosecutor who is handling a case involving coins for the first time, because the evidence that can be obtained has already been collected. Even if the case is returned to the public security authority, it would be very difficult to supplement any stronger evidence regarding this case.

In short, I noticed that the prosecutor's expression became more serious as he took notes. Well, this indicates that my opinions caught his attention. We communicated for two to three hours in the morning, and in the end, he said, "Alright, your points do have some merit, I've noted them all down. I need to discuss them further with the leadership, and I also need to confirm some content with the Public Security before I can reply to you." I know that by coming here this time, I achieved the purpose of this communication.

In the next few days, I did not stop making progress. I continued to maintain ongoing online communication with the prosecutor, repeatedly discussing and addressing the key issues in the case one by one.

As Desired

Ultimately, the sentencing recommendation in this case has gradually been lowered from the initial suggestion of at least seven to eight years by the prosecutor.

First, we persuaded to reduce the sentencing recommendation to less than five years, then further discussed three years of actual imprisonment, followed by a sentence of three years suspended for five years, and finally, we arrived at a result that truly satisfied both me and the party involved: a sentence of two years of imprisonment, with three years of probation.

To outsiders, this may seem like a miracle.

But for me, every adjustment, every persuasion, and every control of the communication rhythm is steadily advancing step by step according to my work plan. Due to space limitations, I will share my case handling ideas and the details of communication with the prosecutor at a later opportunity.

When the result was finally confirmed over the phone with the prosecutor, the prosecutor said:

The fact that the leaders in the court ultimately agreed to this result is indeed the credit of your lawyers. The defense work was done very well, and we acknowledge that your arguments are indeed very reasonable.

To be honest, this is the first time I've heard such words from a prosecutor in my eight years of practice. After all, people in the circle all know that while it is called a "professional community," how many cases are there where the prosecutor and the lawyer mutually respect and recognize each other?

The parties themselves are very satisfied with the final result, so they smoothly signed the plea agreement afterwards, and the case was transferred to the court. However, the court phase was not smooth sailing.

Not long after the case entered the court, my partner, Lawyer Ding, received a phone call from the judge—

How did the prosecution come up with this sentencing recommendation? At most, it's under five years, how could probation possibly apply?

Hearing this, we felt a tightness in our hearts. After all, the sentencing recommendations of the prosecutor's office are just suggestions; the final decision still rests with the judge.

The twists and turns of this matter need not be elaborated on; in short, there were no dangers, and ultimately the court adopted the sentencing recommendation from the prosecution. The judgment has been finalized: a sentence of two years in prison, with a three-year probation.

By the way, judges can be quite interesting. After the case, one of them quietly asked us, how did you communicate with the prosecutor? They usually don't care about us? (This is the judge's exact words.)

Review · Finding Hope in the Crevice

I often say that the work of a criminal defense lawyer is, many times, about finding hope in the cracks.

Behind the ideal results of the case is actually based on the meticulous analysis of the lawyer's litigation strategy, along with good communication between each step and the person in charge. Each step of the work requires keeping the right rhythm and controlling the measure.

The case itself is clearly defined, the amount involved is high, and the parties voluntarily plead guilty, expressing no disagreement with the facts and no objection to the amount calculated by the investigation unit. It seems like there is no room for maneuver in this case. However, I still believe that no matter how difficult or complicated a case is, as long as there is no final judgment, there is always room for communication and adjustment. The issue is not about denying anything, but about: how to find a breakthrough point, within the existing evidence structure, to push the investigation agency to make a judgment that is more favorable to the parties involved.

The breakthrough point of this case is not to question the clearly defined factual basis of the case, but to accurately identify the possible concerns of the case handlers, find the risks that they "cannot accept the most", and then start from these risks to promote adjustments in the handling of the case.

Throughout the entire defense process, we did not evade the seriousness of the case, nor did we blindly challenge the qualifications. Instead, we approached it from the perspective of "allowing the case to smoothly go through the procedures while keeping the punishment within a reasonable range," and designed our strategy accordingly. In summary, standing in the position of the case handlers, providing corresponding defense viewpoints after thorough empathy, and thereby striving for a favorable outcome for the parties involved is a key factor in achieving a good result in this case.

Thank you for the trust of my peers

In this case, it was actually through the introduction of Lawyer Ding Yue from Shanghai Digital Science and Technology Law Firm that the family found me.

To be honest, after being a lawyer for so many years, I have had quite a few cases referred to me by peers. However, this kind of trust among colleagues is not easy to establish, after all, such referrals serve as a form of professional endorsement, and if the referred lawyer messes up the case, it will also reflect poorly on the referrer. Especially in cases like this one, where the case is new and complex and the amount involved is high, it appears to be a very tricky case for any lawyer.

However, Lawyer Dante did not hesitate at all and recommended me to the family at the first opportunity. She told the family: Lawyer Shao handles a lot of virtual currency cases and casino-related cases, and has relatively rich experience. She hopes that I can join this case.

I was actually quite touched after listening. We didn't know each other before, but she was willing to sincerely recommend me to her family without any personal connections. This kind of trust essentially puts the interests of the parties involved first.

Throughout the case handling process, our cooperation was very smooth. Whether it was discussing case strategies, communicating with family members, or preparing materials, we were able to collaborate perfectly. At the same time, I also highly appreciate the professionalism she demonstrated throughout the case, her sincerity, kindness, and her sense of responsibility towards the parties involved and their families.

Afterword

After finishing this article, I still want to add a few words, perhaps unrelated to the case itself, but related to the topic that is often raised: why lawyers defend "bad people".

Some people might say, what is there to defend in such cases? Gambling has harmed so many families, and such people should be severely punished! You lawyers are just helping bad people escape punishment, turning black into white!

But in the process of handling hundreds of criminal cases of various sizes, I also saw that as criminal lawyers, what we face is never the abstract "charges", but rather specific individuals. And behind each person, there is one or even several families.

Moreover, even if everyone's behavior is ultimately classified as a crime, from their perspective, there are specific reasons for it.

In cases like this, the party involved has been working abroad for many years to make a living. Having experience in trading coins and being a programmer skilled in coding, he was introduced to this job of "helping the platform handle funds settlement." This decision was certainly wrong, but his original intention was to earn more money to provide a better life for his family.

Although he has made quite a bit of money from this business over the past two years, he has always lived very frugally. This is also why the money in his exchange account has hardly changed, except for a small amount withdrawn for cashing out when needed to send living expenses to his family back home. The remaining money is saved up for his child's future education and living expenses. He knows that he might not live to see his child go to college, which is why he works so hard to earn more while he is still alive, hoping to leave a little more for his child.

Yes, he did violate the law, but he has already faced the corresponding consequences: he has been detained for more than half a year and has paid the illegal gains and fines. However, if he is to continue being detained for a long time in the future, his family will fall into a deeper predicament.

We never deny the harmfulness of crime. But many times, lawyers are not just defending someone who has been accused; they are also saving a family that is already on the brink of collapse. This, perhaps, is one of the meanings of the existence of criminal defense.