(Andre François Mackenzie/Unsplash)
A woman accused of converting bitcoin into cash and property to hide the proceeds of a £5 billion (roughly R120 billion) fraud was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for money laundering at a trial in a London court on Friday.
Prosecutors said Wen Jian helped conceal the source of funds allegedly stolen from about 130,000 Chinese investors in a fraudulent wealth-rich kidnapping scheme between 2014 and 2017.
Wen is not accused of any involvement in the fraud, but prosecutors allege that the scheme was masterminded by another woman who Wen believed to be independently wealthy.
As part of the investigation, British police seized a wallet containing over 61,000 bitcoin, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures by a law enforcement agency in the world.
61,000 Bitcoins are worth about £At Wen's trial, prosecutors said the amount was $1.4 billion when police began their investigation in 2021. It's now worth £3 billion.
Wen, 42, denies three charges of money laundering and says he had no knowledge of any criminal activity related to Bitcoin.
She was found guilty of one charge by a jury at Southwark Crown Court in March, who were unable to reach a verdict on the other two charges.
Wen was sentenced Friday to 80 months in prison for money laundering.
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