Filecoin Whales Allegedly Arrested in China, Here's Why

Veteran decentralized project Filecoin (FIL) addresses the building of a distributed data storage ecosystem. Shortly after the first anniversary of its mainnet launch, Filecoin (FIL) enthusiasts were targeted by police raids.

Filecoin community under fire: 31 arrested, $80 million seized

According to a press release on Xinhua News Agency shared by Mr. Wu, a municipal police unit of Xúzhōu city concluded a massive anti-criminal raid with 18,000 policemen involved.

Breaking: 31 people from one of the world's largest Filecoin company Star Alliance(星际联盟) were arrested by local police. The seized FIL and other cryptocurrencies were worth 80 million U.S. dollars. The reason is suspected of MLM. https://t.co/1K5MxqZPlr pic.twitter.com/V7rN2OEIkw

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) November 6, 2021

Within the framework of this operation, Chinese police attacked entities and individuals involved in drug trafficking, counterfeiting, money smuggling, prostitution, digital fraud and so on.

Fèngxiáng police arrested 31 members of Star Alliance Network's alleged "multi-level-marketing" scheme. Also, the officers seized almost $80 million worth of various digital currencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Filecoin (FIL) and regional cryptocurrency Teda (TDB).

Mr. Wu stated that Star Alliance Network is one of the largest Filecoin (FIL) firms.

At the same time, Star Alliance representatives released a statement that the funds seized were allegedly used for illegal activity, so the arrests have nothing to do with the company's business.

Filecoin (FIL) celebrates its first mainnet anniversary

As such, the majority of the arrested officials of Star Alliance are back to work; all services will be restored after the conclusion of an investigation.

On Nov. 4, 2021, the Filecoin (FIL) team shared statistics on what is achieved by the project during its first mainnet year. According to their statement, the product operates 13 EiB of file storage.

To provide context, this is equal to 3.77 billion 1080p movies or 58,500 copies of all Wikipedia articles released by Q4, 2021, in all the world's languages.