Woman jailed for laundering bitcoin in UK from £5b China fraud

Woman jailed for laundering bitcoin in UK from £5b China fraud
Woman jailed for laundering bitcoin in UK from £5b China fraud

Hello and welcome to the details of Woman jailed for laundering bitcoin in UK from £5b China fraud and now with the details

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - A woman accused of converting bitcoin into cash and property to help hide the proceeds of a £5 billion (RM30 billion) fraud was jailed for nearly seven years today for money laundering after a trial in a London court. — Reuters pic

LONDON, May 24 — A woman accused of converting bitcoin into cash and property to help hide the proceeds of a £5 billion (RM30 billion) fraud was jailed for nearly seven years today for money laundering after a trial in a London court.

Prosecutors said Wen Jian helped hide the source of money allegedly stolen from nearly 130,000 Chinese investors in fraudulent wealth schemes between 2014 and 2017.

She was not alleged to have been involved in the underlying fraud, which prosecutors said was masterminded by another woman who Wen believed was independently wealthy.

Advertisement

As part of their investigation, British police seized wallets holding more than 61,000 bitcoin — making it one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures by law enforcement worldwide.

The 61,000 bitcoin was worth around £1.4 billion when police gained access in 2021, prosecutors said during Wen’s trial. It is now worth over £3 billion.

Wen, 42, denied three counts of money laundering and said she did not have any knowledge of criminality linked to the bitcoin.

Advertisement

She was found guilty by jurors of one count in March following a trial at Southwark Crown Court. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on two other counts.

Wen was sentenced on Friday to six years and eight months in prison for the single count of money laundering of which she was found guilty.

Judge Sally-Ann Hales said there was no suggestion that Wen had any involvement in the underlying fraud. But the judge told Wen that she had “no doubt that you knew” she was dealing with criminal property.

Prosecutor Gillian Jones said at the start of the trial that the mastermind behind the underlying fraud arrived in Britain in 2017, shortly after Chinese authorities began to investigate.

Wen was used as the “front person”, helping to convert the stolen money into bitcoin to take it out of China and then back into cash.

Prosecutors said Wen should have known the money was illegally obtained. Wen, however, said she was simply trying to provide a better life for her son.

Her lawyer Mark Harries said Wen was simply another victim of an “expert criminal supervillian”, who he said had “used her and abandoned her because she was dependable and expendable”. — Reuters

These were the details of the news Woman jailed for laundering bitcoin in UK from £5b China fraud for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.

It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.

NEXT US military raises alert level for Europe bases: reports

Author Information

I am Jeff King and I’m passionate about business and finance news with over 4 years in the industry starting as a writer working my way up into senior positions. I am the driving force behind Al-KhaleejToday.NET with a vision to broaden the company’s readership throughout 2016. I am an editor and reporter of “Financial” category. Address: 383 576 Gladwell Street Longview, TX 75604, USA Phone: (+1) 903-247-0907 Email: [email protected]