Wong Ching-Kit, a flashy 25-year old cryptocurrency promoter who tried to drum up business by throwing at least $6000 in HK $100 bills off a high-rise in one of Hong Kong’s poorest districts, has received a sentence of 10-day’s imprisonment suspended for 2 years, South China Morning Post reports.
Wong and an alleged accomplice have also been charged with conspiracy to defraud for selling cryptocurrency ‘mining machines’ and services to investors as part of a failed “Filecoin” cryptocurrency venture.
Wong is also being sued by 18 investors who claim he used the mining scheme to dupe them out of HK $3 million dollars (US$384,600), and by another investor seeking to be reimbursed HK$125,000 (US$16,000) for five mining machines, he says he purchased from Wong.
Wong’s file coin venture appears to have failed after he could not get the coin listed on any exchanges.
The status of the other cases against Wong is not currently known.
Wong’s money-throwing incident was indeed successful in terms of publicity.
Videos of people clamouring to catch the cascading bills were transmitted across the world.
Wong initially denied he was behind the stunt, but was on-site just before it happened to record a video in Sham Shui Po in which he stands next to a very expensive car telling viewers: “(I) don’t know if any of you believe money can fall from the sky.”
Within seconds, bills can be seen falling behind Wong. Police reportedly found a bag with a single HK $100 bill in it on the rooftop, but no-one was arrested at the scene.
Wong, who later uploaded that video to his Facebook, is a former young offender convicted of theft before his 18th birthday.