A Taiwanese court has sentenced a bartender to almost two years in prison for collecting cash from a fake-investment victim and laundering it through Tether, a warning shot for the money mules who keep crypto scams running.

• A woman in Miaoli County was tricked by a fake investment pitch and handed over the equivalent of about NT$1.38 million in cash to buy the stablecoin Tether.
• The bartender acted as the in-person courier, showing up to collect the cash under the pretext of delivering the coins.
• He then stashed the money in a designated locker for other gang members to grab, breaking the paper trail so police could not follow the funds.
• Police caught him anyway and seized a cash-counting machine and contracts; his cut was under NT$20,000.
• He confessed and said he supports a father who had a stroke, but he never paid the victim back, and the court gave him one year and ten months for group fraud.

Outlook: Taiwanese courts are showing little patience for low-level crypto couriers, so expect more jail terms as scam rings keep recruiting cash mules.