JPEX was on the SFC's suspicious list for over a year before trading stopped

JPEX scandal timeline from 2020 to 2025

When the SFC named JPEX in September 2023, the platform was still actively promoting itself to the Hong Kong public through influencers and over-the-counter money changers.

From the SFC's first inquiries in March 2022 to naming JPEX publicly on September 13, 2023 took a year and a half. From that public warning to JPEX halting trading took less than a week. From the first arrests to the 16 people reportedly charged took more than two years. Before the public warning, it was the SFC doing the work: making inquiries, listing the site, issuing warnings. Police received the referral the day after JPEX was named (September 14), and from then on it was the police who announced arrests and report figures.

What problems did the SFC's warning statement point out?

The warning statement opens with the background. The SFC had noticed JPEX actively promoting itself to the Hong Kong public through social media influencers and over-the-counter virtual asset money changers (OTC shops, for short), while no entity in the JPEX group was licensed by the SFC or had applied to it for a licence to operate a virtual asset trading platform in Hong Kong.

The statement then lists what was suspicious about JPEX. In paraphrase:

• It claimed to be licensed. JPEX's website described it as a licensed and recognised digital asset and virtual currency platform, and its website and local advertorials said it held licences from several overseas regulators. The SFC said this was untrue: JPEX claimed its operational headquarters were in Dubai and that it was regulated by Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, yet it was not on that authority's public list of licensees, and registering a company overseas is not the same as holding a licence.
• Its returns were abnormally high. On September 12, 2023, flexible earn products on jp-ex.io paid annual yields of 21% on ETH, 20% on BTC and 19% on USDT.
• Assets couldn't be withdrawn. The SFC had received complaints and noted reports that some retail investors could not withdraw virtual assets from their JPEX accounts, or found their account balances reduced or altered.
• The products themselves broke the rules. Some products appeared to be deposit, savings or earn arrangements for virtual assets, which are not allowed under the SFC's regime; the SFC's guidelines for platform operators state that platforms should not use clients' virtual assets in arrangements that generate returns for those clients.
• It claimed a listed company's backing. JPEX promoted a business partnership with, and investment from, a Hong Kong listed company; in fact the partnership had ended and that company had not invested.
• Its promoters spoke for it. Influencers and OTC shops said on social media that JPEX had applied for a licence in Hong Kong, on its own or together with that listed company; in fact JPEX had never submitted any application.

The statement also says the SFC had told the influencers and OTC shops involved to stop promoting JPEX, and it cites two offences under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance: section 53ZRF (fraud in transactions involving virtual assets) and section 53ZRG (inducing others to trade through fraudulent misrepresentation). On conviction on indictment, the first carries a maximum fine of HK$10 million and 10 years' imprisonment, and the second a maximum fine of HK$1 million and 7 years' imprisonment.

Of these problems, the licence claims, the high returns and the listed-company backing were things JPEX said about itself. The withdrawal problems were what users ran into.

JPEX sat on the SFC's list for a year and two months

A second SFC document, the statement on JPEX (last updated September 20, 2023), fills in the dealings between the SFC and JPEX. The SFC had been watching the platform closely since March 2022 and making inquiries into suspected false and misleading statements and unlicensed activity. JPEX did not cooperate or give any substantive response, so in July 2022 it was added to the suspicious websites list.

JPEX also published confidential correspondence between itself and the SFC's Enforcement Division on its own website. The SFC said this breached the secrecy provisions in section 378 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance and section 76B of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, and expressed deep regret over it. The same statement confirms that JPEX never approached the SFC about a licence application, and that there had been no licensing-related communication of any kind between them.

Information the SFC obtained later raised suspicions of fraud, and it referred the matter to the police. The statement also notes that before it named JPEX again on September 13, 2023, the SFC and the Investor and Financial Education Council had together issued at least nine warnings about trading on unlicensed platforms, on their websites, on social media, and on TV and radio.

The suspicious websites list sits on the SFC's website, where anyone can check it. From jp-ex.io being added on July 8, 2022 to trading stopping at 00:00 on September 18, 2023, a year and two months went by.

Trading stopped at 00:00 on September 18

The police release of September 19, 2023 begins with the sequence of events. After the SFC said it was unlicensed, JPEX raised its trading fees, which in effect stopped users from withdrawing their assets; at 00:00 on September 18 it took down its earn product pages and stopped all trading services. The release then gives the police's description of the platform: JPEX used OTC money changers and influencers to promote itself heavily, drawing in investors with exaggerated and false claims, and it had developed its own token, JPC, which could not be traded on other platforms and which police described as having extremely low liquidity and being essentially worthless. Police believed those involved had committed conspiracy to defraud.

On September 29, the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) described the JPEX case as the fraud with the most victims and the largest losses in recent years. In a joint operation from September 26 to 28, police in Hong Kong and Macau arrested 4 people and seized or froze assets worth about 24 million in total. The release does not say which currency that figure is in, and the total includes what was seized and frozen on the Macau side as well as in Hong Kong. Some of those involved had already left Hong Kong, and police said they would pursue them through international cooperation.

The two police updates in September 2023 counted differently, one by cases and one by people. One case doesn't necessarily mean one person reporting, so the two sets of figures shouldn't simply be subtracted from each other.

The 2025 charges are known only from media reports

According to a Hong Kong Free Press report of November 5, 2025, Hong Kong police announced that day that 16 people had been charged in the JPEX case. They included JPEX core members, people running OTC exchanges, social media influencers and holders of stooge accounts.

The report says 6 of the core figures were charged under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance as amended in 2022, the first time charges had been brought under it, with an offence that broadly covers fraudulently or recklessly inducing others to invest in virtual assets. The report also says Interpol had issued red notices for 3 key figures believed to have left Hong Kong.

As of those November 2025 reports, the case had moved into prosecution; being charged is not the same as being convicted.

The Keeper's notes

This section is the Keeper's own view. None of it comes from SFC or police documents, so please read it separately from the sections above.

Several warning signs were visible before the collapse

Looking back, all of the following were already true before JPEX stopped trading, and several of them could be checked from the outside:

• it claimed to be licensed, but it wasn't on the SFC's list of licensed platforms, and the Dubai regulator it named didn't have it on its public list of licensees either;
• its flexible earn products offered annual yields of 19% to 21%;
• it had its own token, JPC, which couldn't be traded on other platforms;
• it relied heavily on influencers and OTC money changers for promotion, and those promoters said on social media that it had applied for a licence in Hong Kong;
• after the SFC named it, it raised trading fees and withdrawing assets became difficult.

Held up against this archive's guide How to Tell If a Crypto Exchange Is Safe, JPEX matches red flag 6 (you can't find the legal entity or any licence) and comes closest to red flag 1 (promises of fixed returns or guaranteed profit), since what it put on display was flexible earn yields of 19% to 21% a year. Its own token, JPC, being untradeable elsewhere isn't listed separately in that guide. For eight earlier exchange collapses compared side by side, see 5 Sieves to Pick a Crypto Exchange. Taken one at a time, none of these signs is enough to judge a platform; what set JPEX apart was that they all appeared together.

You can check a platform's licence on the SFC website

Two lists on the SFC website bear directly on this case: the list of virtual asset trading platforms, for checking whether a platform is licensed, and the suspicious websites list, which covers unlicensed companies and websites the SFC considers suspicious.

If a platform says it holds an overseas licence, what counts is that overseas regulator's own public list of licensees. The SFC rebutted JPEX's Dubai claim on exactly that basis: JPEX wasn't on the public licensee list of Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

The SFC's warnings were on record well before the collapse

The SFC's statement says JPEX posted its confidential correspondence with the SFC's Enforcement Division on its own website. To someone unfamiliar with regulatory procedure, the fact that a platform has been in contact with the SFC can easily be taken to mean a licence is on its way; in the same statement, the SFC confirmed there had never been any licensing-related communication between them. That correspondence with an enforcement body may have worked as a kind of endorsement in outsiders' eyes, but that is only the Keeper's guess.

The SFC started its inquiries in March 2022 and put the web address on a public list in July. Before September 13, 2023, the SFC and the Investor and Financial Education Council had also issued at least nine warnings about trading on unlicensed platforms.