Victor Oluoma 
Bitcoin Laundering Case, UK court Convicts Employee of $2.5B
Bitcoin was at the center of a UK court’s finding of Jian Wen’s guilt in a money laundering scheme of $2.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.
A major fraud court in the United Kingdom allegedly found a hotel employee guilty of money laundering after discovering that she was in possession of $2.5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC).
A recent BBC article claims that Jian Wen was found guilty by the Southwark Crown Court of money laundering after he used Bitcoin to buy “multi-million-pound houses and jewelry.” The investigation involved the examination of 48 electronic devices and thousands of digital files, many translated from Mandarin.
It was Wen’s altered way of living that caught the authorities’ attention. She apparently moved from an apartment above a Chinese restaurant to a six-bedroom property in North London in 2017, paying about $21,420 a month for the rental.
The attempted purchase of a $30 million London mansion was the final red flag, according to media reports on January 31, that prompted the authorities to look into her.
She allegedly tried to buy many pricey homes in London that same year, but she had trouble clearing money-laundering checks because she was claiming to have made millions from mining Bitcoin.
The UK police described the seizure as the “largest of its kind in the UK”. On May 10, Wen will face punishment for his guilty finding of “entering into or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement.”
Chief Crown Prosecutor Andrew Penhale of the CPS reaffirmed the widespread usage of digital assets in criminal activities in recent times:
Cash is still the favored method, according to a recent analysis from the US Treasury Department, which refutes the authorities’ widely held belief that cryptocurrency is a popular choice for money laundering.
According to media reports on February 8, the Treasury cited cash’s stability and anonymity as the major reasons it continues to be the favored way of laundering criminal gains.
The stock exchange giant Nasdaq’s recently released “Global Financial Crime Report,” which includes statistics pertaining to financial crime over the previous year, did not mention Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
However, it did project that approximately $3.1 trillion in illicit funds would pass through the world banking system in 2023.