Dezhou police in Shandong Province have busted a cross-provincial online extortion ring that used cryptocurrency and third-party payment agent platforms to launder proceeds. The gang impersonated environmental inspection officials and journalists, deploying drones to film livestock farms and posting negative videos to pressure farmers into paying for content removal. The group committed 268 offenses across 22 cities in five provinces—Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Anhui—within two months, extorting over 800,000 yuan. Collected funds were routed through payment QR codes and third-party payment agent platforms before being settled with money-laundering groups using crypto. Twenty-three suspects have been arrested, and authorities have sealed, seized, or frozen more than 2 million yuan in related assets.