Woman With $2.5 Billion In Bitcoin Convicted of Money Laundering (bbc.co.uk) 70
mrspoonsi shares a report from the BBC: A former takeaway worker found with Bitcoin worth more than $2.5 billion has been convicted at Southwark Crown Court of a crime linked to money laundering. Jian Wen, 42, from Hendon in north London, was involved in converting the currency into assets including multi-million-pound houses and jewelry. On Monday she was convicted of entering into or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement. The Met said the seizure is the largest of its kind in the UK.
Although Wen was living in a flat above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds when she became involved in the criminal activity, her new lifestyle saw her move into a six-bedroom house in north London in 2017 which was rented for more than $21,000 per month. She posed as an employee of an international jewelry business and moved her son to the UK to attend private school, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said. That same year, Wen tried to buy a string of expensive houses in London, but struggled to pass money-laundering checks and her claims she had earned millions legitimately mining Bitcoin were not believed. She later travelled abroad, buying jewelry worth tens of thousands of pounds in Zurich, and purchasing properties in Dubai in 2019.
Another suspect is thought to be behind the fraud but they remain at large. The Met said it carried out a large scale investigation as part of the case - searching several addresses, reviewing 48 electronic devices, and examining thousands of digital files including many which were translated from Mandarin. The CPS has obtained a freezing order from the High Court, while it carries out a civil recovery investigation that could lead to the forfeiture of the Bitcoin. The value of the Bitcoin was worth around $2.5 billion at the time of initial estimates -- but due to the fluctuation in the currency's value, it has since increased to around $4.3 billion.
Although Wen was living in a flat above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds when she became involved in the criminal activity, her new lifestyle saw her move into a six-bedroom house in north London in 2017 which was rented for more than $21,000 per month. She posed as an employee of an international jewelry business and moved her son to the UK to attend private school, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said. That same year, Wen tried to buy a string of expensive houses in London, but struggled to pass money-laundering checks and her claims she had earned millions legitimately mining Bitcoin were not believed. She later travelled abroad, buying jewelry worth tens of thousands of pounds in Zurich, and purchasing properties in Dubai in 2019.
Another suspect is thought to be behind the fraud but they remain at large. The Met said it carried out a large scale investigation as part of the case - searching several addresses, reviewing 48 electronic devices, and examining thousands of digital files including many which were translated from Mandarin. The CPS has obtained a freezing order from the High Court, while it carries out a civil recovery investigation that could lead to the forfeiture of the Bitcoin. The value of the Bitcoin was worth around $2.5 billion at the time of initial estimates -- but due to the fluctuation in the currency's value, it has since increased to around $4.3 billion.
Multi-million pound house? (Score:2, Funny)
multi-million-pound houses
That seems like a very weird way to quantify a house. Also seems like a lot, according to Quora the average suburban house only weighs 240,000-360,000 pounds.
Re:Multi-million pound house? (Score:5, Funny)
You focused on that and completely ignored her jewelry hoard horad with that weighed millions of pounds? Like she was a dragon.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Multi-million pound house? (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA: 'Jian "Smaug" Wen, 42, from Hendon in north London, ...'
Re:Multi-million pound house? (Score:4, Interesting)
More like a CCP apparatchik caught moving corrupt money. I still remember the hilarious case when Chinese authorities grabbed one of them before he could move it out, so much cash at home they had to use trucks to move it out. Literally tons upon tons of cash in weight.
This is almost certainly same shit. Corrupt Chinese money trying to get the fuck out of PRC using mules like this woman. They get nabbed occasionally, but most of it gets past the authorities.
Stories of "Chinese nationals showing up with suitcase of cash to buy your house" has been a thing in a lot of nations with strong rule of law and protection of property. Chinese upper class have been running scared shitless that anti-corruption campaign gets to each of them, and have been trying to get the money out for close to a decade in increasingly weird and desperate ways. And a few years ago when Hong Kong got finally taken over by PRC, most of the insurance scams and other similar HK paths to get money out dried up, so they moved up to bitcoin.
Re:Multi-million pound house? (Score:5, Funny)
the average suburban house only weighs 240,000-360,000 pounds.
But being in the UK, what would that be in stone?
Re: Multi-million pound house? (Score:1)
No. Stones (and the remainder pounds) are only for human weight.
Use of pounds for the weight of anything else has long been defunct in the UK. I can't think of any exceptions - maybe there are some. Even for human weight, its use is fading out in favour of kg.
Re: (Score:2)
So is that where Canada got the idea? Pounds for people, and Kilos for everything else.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
One, if it's big enough.
(Thanks, I'll be here all night, don't forget to wait for your tipster.)
Re: (Score:2)
multi-million-pound houses
That seems like a very weird way to quantify a house.
Tally- Ho! Its Europe so they should be talking Kilograms....duh.
Re: (Score:2)
Help me out, though, because I'm a dumb American: how many Royale with Cheese [youtube.com] is that?
Noob mistake (Score:2)
The value of the Bitcoin was worth around $2.5 billion at the time of initial estimates -- but due to the fluctuation in the currency's value, it has since increased to around $4.3 billion.
By simply retaining $2.4 billion and using the hundred million as grease she wouldn’t have been suspected of a thing. Or better yet, doing as she partially did in the first place, buying assets in countries that don’t ask embarrassing questions. Then when things have settled down doing some property exchanges.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
these people dont understand bitcoin if they're using it to buy property LOL. they should've just left it in bitcoin
Re: (Score:1)
It's hard to live in a bitcoin.
Re: (Score:2)
buying assets in countries that don’t ask embarrassing questions.
hence the property in dubai, the only place that would take her obviously dodgy money no questions asked
if I had 2.5B (Score:3)
I would start my own bank. Then make money off bridge loans.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That tracks. I've been reading John Scalzi's "Starter Villain" and thinking about how many shell corporations and banks you need to control to properly be a villain.
Re: if I had 2.5B (Score:1)
Options (Score:2, Insightful)
With all the things you can do with Bitcoin, they chose to launder. Why didn't they use their Bitcoin to... wait... what else can Bitcoin be used for?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is a made up crime
No it's a real crime. That you don't understand it has no bearing on this case.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Flimsy evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Convicted of money laundering, its not an accusation. the evidence was clear and convincing and the sentence affirmed.
Re: Flimsy evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
No one said the evidence was the use of Bitcoin, only that she did use Bitcoin.
Re: Flimsy evidence (Score:3)
It's not that she bought stuff with Bitcoin but that she couldn't explain where she got so much of it from. There's been other cases of people being issued with Unexplained Wealth Orders, which can result in money laundering charges. This lady went from having declared income of less than £6,000/year in 2016/2017 to buying multi-million pound houses. Suspicious? Guess what? The UK has been cracking down on that kind of behaviour because it's normally a sign of money laundering. It's absolu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that she bought stuff with Bitcoin but that she couldn't explain where she got so much of it from.
The article suggest she claimed to be mining Bitcoin. The 70,000 Bitcoin that would be 4.5 billion today may seem like a large amount of Bitcoin now,
but 16 years ago this amount of Bitcoin was not significant.
There was a long period of time where Anyone could have acquired the amount of Bitcoin for less than $1000 from a bitcoin ATM and potentially have no way to show how they got that.
Seems Total
Re: Flimsy evidence (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, that wasn't her money, she probably only pulled down a one or two percent fee. She got caught because she was greedy, her customers lost their money because they were cheap. For a 10-15% fee they could have gone to one of the multinational banks, apply to become a 'private banking' customer, and their money would have come out the other end a couple hours later spick and span.
Re: (Score:1)
> The UK has been cracking down on that kind of behaviour
Absolutely, if she'd been a Tory donor for the odd million here and there, she'd probably have got away with it. She'd maybe just have had to apologise for her criminal behaviour, and she'd have been done.
Re: (Score:2)
Bitcoin is for small timers. Now if her clients had been smart they would have just taken that cash to a stockborker. Move $2.5 billion in Bitcoin and you make headlines, move that amount on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and no one would even notice. In a lot of places you can literally drag a footlocker of cash into a broker's office without any onerous reporting necessities. At one point the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange went to the jungles of Colombia to offer their services to the FARC (and late
Re: (Score:2)
I wish it applied to old money too. But it's just newly-rich crooks really, not royal family etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish it applied to old money too.
So you're saying that people should be tried and convicted for the actions of their parents and/or grandparents? That sounds troubling to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Their evidence of her money laundering is that she bought stuff with Bitcoin?
No, she bought Bitcoin with the money from laundering not that was the evidence of the laundering. She also attempted to buy property with the money. Read the summary again.
It should not be any of the govt's concern on how she earned the Bitcoin. As long as she didnt earn it in the UK, the govt has no claim to taxing it.
Again, read the summary. The Bitcoin is her attempt to explain how she got her money, but the issue is she bought billions more than she sold. She still has yet to explain how she was able to purchase all that coin. It would be like someone attempting to explain away their millions by saying they were in the real estate business. On pape
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What is the govts proof that she did not mine the BTC? Isnt it supposed to be innocent until proved guilty Has the govt proved she didint mine the BTC?
This was a conviction; they government proved it to a court that she did not mine the BTC.
She should have sold NFTs (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Buying something Off yourself Or entering other transactions with the Purpose and Intention of disguising the source of funds is the Literal definition of money laundering, the crime she's been alleged to have committed
Re: (Score:2)
But this time there would be ugly AI monkeys to look at.
Crypto has no legitimate use-case at scale. (Score:5, Insightful)
The second any crypto related business adds Know Your Customer procedures to their platform, 90% of transactions immediately disappear. And this is generally followed by a series of indictments.
Small time, organic users of crypto are being tricked into becoming packing peanuts meant to protect the real "users" in the crypto space: cartel money launderers like Jian Wen.
Crypto is marketing euphemism for a specific type of criminal enterprise. It has no legitimacy and cannot be a productive business model.
Re: (Score:2)
None of the problems you're describing are actually solved by crypto, they are in fact exasperated by crypto.
Cash is king.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm sorry but crypto is much more easily tracked and controlled than cash. Crypto is not anonymous or secure. Salesman just keep saying that they are but anonymity is simply not an option for crypto users. None of the problems you're describing are actually solved by crypto, they are in fact exasperated by crypto. Cash is king.
Bitcoin. Bitcoin is much more easily tracked and controlled than cash. It's not the only cryptocurrency in existence you know, and there are ones offering true anonymity. Plus, even bitcoin - tracked yes, but controlled? Can the govt shut down my account with a click of a button? No, not really.
Criminals are dumb? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, if she had $2.5 billion in Bitcoin, all she needed to do was convert it bit-by-bit into fiat currency. Then live the good life. Zero need to start handling shady transactions for other people.
I suppose the real question is: where did she get $2.5 billion in Bitcoin. She seems an unlike person to have run a mining rig in the early days, where that was possible. OTOH, if she is the front person for a criminal organization it seems unlikely that she would have been allowed to be so flagrant: buying houses, jewelry, etc..
Re: (Score:3)
You're assuming that $2.5 billion in bitcoin was hers. Hint 1: Money launderers are not normally filthy rich in their own right, they often just get caught with other people's money. Hint 2: It's crypto. Most cases related to crime are due to misshandling the money of others.
The government thought she had too much money (Score:2, Interesting)
So they stole it, called it Money Laundering, the trained seals clapped, the rich get richer.
Any money you do not immediately remit to the government could be considered laundered by the government.
What exactly was her crime? Notice they do not exactly say? They just repeat money laundering a bunch of times, and that is it. Because she bought stuff with bitcoin.
She was robbed by the state who noticed the big sums and decided to take it for their own.
Yay! Freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
They did. Despite countless republicans looking they couldn't find any actual reasonable crimes. Turns out you don't just magic crime into existence because jewish space laser lady thinks it happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile literally being crushed under mountains of evidence. Check out pedo Joe's popularity. Kinda says something don't you think?
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, they've been in the game long enough to know how to keep it hidden. This person was an amateur, the pros work for CitiCorp, the Chicago Merc, the New York and London stock exchanges, and the big commercial real estate companies. It's likely her customers were cheapskates who wanted to avoid the normal 10-15% laundering fees and she offered a cheaper option.
Re: (Score:2)
You jest, but until cash purchases were surpassed with credit card buys fast food places like KFC and Taco Hell were frequently money laundries for dope wholesalers. A place with a couple dozen customers a day could flush $15,000 or more in cash from the streets to the bank a day, and as long as the franchisee paid their taxes no one looked twice.
One Thief Stealing From Another (Score:1)
UK = US, the legal system has been weaponized (Score:2)