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Former Chinese takeaway worker found guilty of money laundering after police discover he converted Bitcoin Billions worth of cash and expensive goods, including jewelery and real estate in Dubai.
The incident came to light after police seized 61,000 bitcoins from a digital wallet linked to Wen in 2021. The cryptocurrency was worth 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) at the time and is now worth $3.8 billion, according to the CPS.
Prosecutors said Wen helped an international fraudster, who remains at large, hide Bitcoin stolen from nearly 130,000 Chinese investors between 2014 and 2017. Mr. Wen is not suspected of involvement in his original fraud.
Ms Wen lived above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds until she met a woman who claimed to be her “employer”.
In 2017, she began converting the stolen bitcoins into cash, jewelery and two properties in Dubai worth more than 500,000 pounds ($640,000), a court heard.
Police seized cash from Jiang Wen’s property.
CPS
Wen also rented a six-bedroom property in north London for about 17,000 pounds ($20,000) a month and paid for her son to immigrate from China to attend a private school in the UK.
The CPS said police intervened after Wen tried to buy several properties in London but had trouble converting Bitcoin into cash and completing anti-money laundering compliance checks at banks.
When challenged, the woman said she earned the money legally through Bitcoin mining. It was later claimed that her employer had given her 3,000 Bitcoins, worth around £15 million at the time.
“Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are increasingly being used by organized criminals to disguise and transfer assets so that fraudsters can reap the benefits of their criminal activities,” Chief Prosecutor Andrew Penhale said in a press release. ” “This case, which involves the UK’s largest crypto seizure, illustrates the scale of the proceeds of crime that fraudsters have earned.”
Adrian Foster, another lead prosecutor, added that the CPS had worked with police to obtain a freezing order to preserve the seized virtual currency.
“A CPS-led civil recovery investigation is underway to establish that the frozen virtual currency is criminal property and seek its forfeiture,” he said.
Wen is scheduled to be sentenced on May 10.