AI Quantitative Lock-Up Financial Scam: Disguising Ponzi Schemes as AI and Quantitative Strategies, Resulting in Full Lock-Ups and Exit Scams

Who Gets Targeted

The victims are primarily middle-class individuals with some investment experience but lacking underlying technical literacy, retail crypto investors, and small business owners seeking steady returns. Eager to achieve wealth growth through new technologies and lured by claims of risk-free arbitrage, they ignored the uncontrollable risks of their funds while chasing high returns, trusting surface-level compliant application interfaces and fabricated backtest data, mistakenly believing they could withdraw before a crash. After the collapse, withdrawal channels were completely shut down, leaving investors empty-handed: over 30 self-organized rights-protection report groups were formed nationwide, with registered victims surpassing 3,200. The highest single loss reached 2.6 million yuan, and total estimated funds involved exceed 300 million yuan (media estimates pending independent verification).

骗局怎么运作

• Packaging AI Quantitative Concepts to Fabricate the Myth of High-Frequency Trading: Fraud syndicates register seemingly reputable overseas quantitative fund companies, fabricating research and development backgrounds in Wall Street or Silicon Valley. They claim to combine large language models with blockchain analysis technology to build zero-slippage, risk-free arbitrage quantitative trading strategies. In reality, no real smart trading occurs on the backend, and all dashboard data are simulated platforms whose numbers can be modified at will by the backend.
• Issuing Pseudo-Stablecoins or Locking Mainstream Crypto Assets to Promise Guaranteed High Returns: Using platform native tokens or directly locking mainstream stablecoins as investment methods, they design tiered wealth management packages promising daily returns from 0.5% to 2% or even higher. This induces investors to abandon low-yield traditional finance and transfer funds into crypto wallets. Paired with an early phase of small-amount instant withdrawals to build trust, they lock funds instantly once large amounts enter.
• Multi-Level MLM Recruitment and Commission Systems Forming a Fission Network: Implementing promotion ambassador and star partner systems within communities, they require veteran members to continuously recruit new members in WeChat groups and offline seminars. High direct-referral bonuses, matching bonuses, and differential systems form a capital circulation network, allowing endless customer acquisition to fill the nonexistent quantitative return gaps.
• Sudden Full Lock-Up and Shutdown of Withdrawal Channels to Create Panic: When incoming funds become insufficient to pay interest for the Ponzi bubble, the operation team updates the backend application or directly shuts down network nodes, announcing forced lock-ups for all user accounts due to extreme market volatility causing strategy drawdowns or compliance audits with global regulations, completely cutting off withdrawal channels.
• Using System Upgrades or Unfreezing Fees as Excuses to Continue Extortion: During the lock-up phase, customer service group admins buy time by making excuses such as batch unfreezing after system maintenance. They also induce victims eager to recover losses to deposit capital verification fees or smart contract patch fees into designated addresses, only to block them immediately after payment and destroy server evidence.
• Cross-Chain Money Laundering Syndicates Fleeing Overseas to Cut Off Investigation Trails: After draining the fund pool, the syndicate thoroughly launders and converts the locked funds into fiat currency using mixers, cross-chain bridges, and over-the-counter shops. They then dissolve domestic technical operations and promotion teams and relocate overseas, leaving behind unrecoverable shell companies and causing victims to have no recourse for rights protection.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Claiming zero-risk or extremely low-risk risk-free quantitative arbitrage with promised fixed excessive daily returns, which completely contradicts financial operation principles in the highly volatile cryptocurrency market.
• 🚩 Applications lack formal registration and credible entity support, downloadable only through web QR codes or unofficial links. The operating entity company has no substantive business and even impersonates well-known institutions.
• 🚩 Demanding direct transfers of crypto assets like Tether to designated personal wallet addresses or unknown exchange sub-accounts, refusing regulated third-party custody services.
• 🚩 Heavy reliance on recruiting downlines to earn returns, where daily shared earnings screenshots inside communities come from hierarchical holding systems rather than real smart trading strategies and open-source code audits.
• 🚩 Fabricated disclaimers and compliance license displays claiming full regulation by an overseas financial regulatory authority, while the regulatory qualification is merely basic registration rather than a financial license qualified to raise funds from the public.
• 🚩 Official customer service providing contradictory explanations during system lag or large withdrawal delays, or even inversely demanding fund unfreezing service fees, which is a classic secondary scam signal.

真实案例

• In May 2026, Shenzhen police officially opened an investigation into the Zhongxiongming Quantitative Smart Wealth Management fund pool collapse. Posing as smart quantitative trading, the platform promised extremely high annualized returns, attracting massive investments. The platform later suddenly executed a full lock-up, leaving investors penniless with estimated funds involved exceeding 300 million yuan, and victims distributed across multiple regions nationwide. (Source: [https://www.bashou.cc/article/6151.html](https://www.bashou.cc/article/6151.html))
• In June 2026, the Southern Metropolis Daily exposed multiple smart quantitative investment scams. Criminal syndicates invited purported experts to host offline lectures, fabricating big data quantitative models to guide investors into depositing funds into fake wealth management apps. Initially allowing small withdrawals to paralyze victims, they rapidly laundered money and fled, prompting Shenzhen regulatory authorities to issue specialized warnings.
• Starting in 2025, a scam syndicate impersonating the well-known exchange Binance launched a mining wealth management scheme using its brand, claiming daily interest as high as 4% alongside a recruitment commission mechanism, tricking investors into depositing stablecoins into their fake standalone systems. The scheme later executed a full lock-up and website shutdown, pillaging the funds of numerous retail investors.
• In January 2026, police officially opened an investigation into the Baiyu Quantitative AI Quantitative Stock Trading fund pool operated by Wuhan Baiyu Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., arresting several suspects while the principal culprit remains actively pursued. The platform claimed daily returns of 3% to 5% and monthly returns exceeding 150%, which were actually virtual trading dashboards with no real stock trades, routing funds into shell companies and private accounts. A Guangzhou investor invested a cumulative total of over 1.6 million yuan before the platform restricted withdrawals under the guise of system maintenance and shut down servers, leaving over 300 similar victims. (Source: [https://moment.rednet.cn/content/646041/62/16122215.html](https://moment.rednet.cn/content/646041/62/16122215.html))

Official Stance

• Shenzhen Local Financial Supervision Bureau, People's Bank of China Shenzhen Branch, 2026-06-18, issued the 'Risk Warning on Preventing Illegal Financial Activities Involving Virtual Currencies' (Source: [https://jr.sz.gov.cn/sjrb/xxgk/tzzjy/content/post_12849413.html](https://jr.sz.gov.cn/sjrb/xxgk/tzzjy/content/post_12849413.html))

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Recognize the Technical Disguise: Do not be fooled by cutting-edge scientific and technological jargon such as large model quantization and smart high-frequency arbitrage. Any crypto wealth management project claiming guaranteed principal and returns with continuous excessive stable rewards is fundamentally a Ponzi scheme; maintain high vigilance.
• ✅ Refuse Private Transfers and Unofficial Downloads: Never download wealth management apps through QR codes sent in group chats or third-party links, and never transfer virtual currencies like Tether to personal wallet addresses. Prioritize investments through formally registered and licensed financial institutions.
• ✅ Beware of Recruitment Models and Commission Traps: If an investment project requires continuously developing downlines to earn direct-referral bonuses and differential commissions or other complex hierarchical systems, it is 100% suspected to be an MLM fund pool. If you discover related groups plotting recruitment, exit immediately and report them to public security and financial regulatory authorities.
• ✅ Consolidate Evidence and Report to Police Immediately: Once a platform exhibits withdrawal delays, unexplainable system upgrades, or demands for unfreezing fees, immediately stop investing and screenshot/save all app interfaces, transfer records, and customer service chat logs. Promptly report to the police and maintain communication with law enforcement.