British-Chinese Money Launder Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison for Role in $6B Fraud: FT

A British-Chinese woman guilty of laundering bitcoin in a $6 billion fraud in China has been sentenced to six year and eight months in prison, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday.

Jian Wen, 42, who was alleged to have carrying out the laundering on behalf of her former boss, was found guilty in March.

Police in the U.K. seized over 1.7 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) worth of bitcoin related to the alleged fraud in a 2018 operation. Wen was accused of laundering BTC on behalf of Yadi Zhang, whose real name is Zhimin Qian.

Zhimian is alleged to have defrauded around 130,000 investors in China in an investment scam that brought in $5 billion. Her lawyer has said she is “wholly innocent,” according to the FT’s report.

Wen was not accused of any involvement in the fraud, but of laundering the proceeds, converting the bitcoin into cash and purchasing property, jewellery and other luxury items.

She denied the charges against her, with her lawyer, Mark Harries, KC, claiming she had been “duped and used.”

Wen admitted to being control of a bitcoin wallet on behalf of her boss but claimed that she was unaware where the contents had come from.

“I am in no doubt that . . . you knew, rather than merely suspected, that you were dealing in the proceeds of crime,” Judge Sally-Ann Hales, KC, said in Southwark Crown Court on Friday. “This was an offence which was sophisticated and involved significant planning.”

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