Former Bybit employee, 32-year-old Ho Kai Xin, received nearly 10 years in prison for stealing $4.2 million in cryptocurrency. The court found that, while working at WeChain Fintech — a third-party company responsible for paying Bybit employees — she falsified payment documents and transferred funds to her own wallets.
It is reported that between May and August 2022, Ho added fake entries to the payroll and replaced the wallet addresses of Bybit employees with her own. This allowed her to execute eight transactions, through which the exchange sent her 4.2 million USDT. The forged documents were approved without verification by her supervisor, after which the transactions were processed by WeChain’s finance department.
To cover her tracks, Ho edited the payroll before sending it to Bybit, removing any data that could raise suspicion. This enabled her to avoid detection until September 2022.
Investigation and Attempts to Cover Her Tracks
The fraud was uncovered on September 7, 2022, when WeChain’s CFO noticed suspiciously large cryptocurrency transfers. When an internal investigation began, Ho attempted to conceal her actions by slightly altering wallet addresses in the documents.
On October 3, 2022, she was called in for questioning, during which she blamed the transfers on a non-existent “cousin” named Jason Teo, who was allegedly in control of wallets containing the stolen funds. The following day, she ceased communication with Bybit and WeChain, then canceled her housing purchase application and paid a deposit for a luxury penthouse valued at $3.7 million.
Spending the Stolen Funds and Asset Seizure
Ho did not attempt to hide the stolen money; instead, she spent it on a lavish lifestyle, purchasing a Mercedes-Benz AMG A45, expensive accessories from Louis Vuitton, and real estate. To complicate tracking, she distributed the funds across six bank accounts and four crypto wallets.
When Bybit began scrutinizing her financial activities, the court froze her assets. Despite this, over the next two months, Ho conducted additional transactions totaling $840K, ignoring the court order.
In July 2023, the High Court of Singapore ruled in favor of Bybit. During the investigation, authorities were able to recover 1.17 million USDT and $141.8K from her accounts, but the majority of the stolen funds remain lost. Ho did not offer to reimburse the remaining amount.
The Trial and Sentencing
In February 2024, the prosecution charged Ho with 44 counts, including fraud, money laundering, and providing false information to the police. On January 27, 2025, the court found her guilty of contempt of court and sentenced her to six weeks in prison for violating the court order. She also voluntarily admitted to 14 additional charges.
The Bybit prosecutor demanded an extra sentence of nine months for failing to comply with court orders. Representing herself in court, Ho requested that her sentence be limited to three months, to be served concurrently with her primary sentence. Judge Philip Jeyaretnam ruled that the violation of the court order should be considered separately from the main criminal case, but acknowledged that her actions were significantly interconnected.
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