Woman Sentenced for Laundering Bitcoin in UK in $6.4B Chinese Fraud Case
A woman accused of converting Bitcoin into cash and property to conceal the proceeds of a £5 billion ($6.4 billion) fraud was sentenced on Friday to six years and eight months in jail for money laundering after a trial in a London court, as reported by Reuters.
Wen Jian, 42, denied three counts of money laundering, claiming she had no knowledge of the criminality linked to the Bitcoin. However, she was found guilty of one count in March after a trial at Southwark Crown Court. The jury couldn’t reach a verdict on two other counts.
In the U.K., authorities seized Bitcoin worth over 1.7 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) in connection to the purported fraud during a 2018 operation. Wen faced allegations of laundering BTC for Yadi Zhang, also known as Zhimin Qian.
Prosecutors stated that Wen assisted in hiding the source of money allegedly stolen from nearly 130,000 Chinese investors in fraudulent wealth schemes between 2014 and 2017. While she wasn’t alleged to have been involved in the underlying fraud, prosecutors said she aided another woman who was the mastermind behind it.
As part of their investigation, British police seized wallets containing over 61,000 Bitcoin, marking one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures globally. The Bitcoin, worth around £1.4 billion when accessed in 2021, is now valued over £3 billion.
During Wen’s trial, prosecutors argued that she should have known the money was illegally obtained. Although the judge acknowledged that there was no evidence of Wen’s involvement in the underlying fraud, she stated that Wen “knew” she was dealing with criminal property.
Prosecutor Gillian Jones stated at the trial’s start that the mastermind behind the fraud arrived in Britain in 2017, shortly after Chinese authorities initiated an investigation. Wen was utilized as the “front person,” facilitating the conversion of stolen money into Bitcoin to move it out of China and back into cash. Wen, however, claimed she was merely attempting to provide a better life for her son.
