[Bitcoin] woman found with £2bn worth of bitcoin - page 2.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: coolcoinz on May 31, 2024, 03:23:02 PM

How do you get people to give you 5 billion dollars?

I guess it's one of those things that got out of hand Tongue

I'd estimate there are thousands if not millions of scammers, all trying to hit it big. This one hit the jackpot, and that was probably unexpected. This painted a bullseye on her back. Getting away with stealing $100 is a lot easier than getting away with stealing a billion.

Quote

I've seen some ponzi schemes and scams but they were usually in the millions, not billions. Even the famous Charles Ponzi stole $15 million.

Now add a century of inflation and the internet! Mr. Ponzi did this offline.

Quote

It's easy to hide $100k and not pay taxes from it

Speaking from experience? Tongue

boyptc

hero member

Activity: 3024

Merit: 680

★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!

Quote from: nelson4lov on May 31, 2024, 06:30:44 PM

Her prison sentence definitely serves her right. She definitely knew what she was doing when she was laundering money for her boss so she has to get their own fair share of punishments now that shit has hit the fan. Soon, we're going to realize that some of the richest bitcoiners/crypto folks we see in CT or any other crypto communities amass those assets from non-legal means. We're not set for that story.

I'm sure that she's getting a good compensation with that. But she can literally stomach that money that others have worked hard for even though she's just a worker.

Even if she denies, her story isn't convincing and the background of her work surely gave her an idea on how the process goes with all of those conversion.

Quote from: nelson4lov on May 31, 2024, 06:30:44 PM

Hopefully those monies will be returned tl the defrauded victims.

I second that, the hardworking people regardless of the race deserves their own money that they sweat and worked for.

PX-Z

hero member

Activity: 1498

Merit: 872

Top Crypto Casino

That news article is a terrible journalism from bbc, i wonder if it should be called a news on their behalf.

Good thing there are other news outlets. Well, this is just click bait bad image for bitcoin. Anyway, investments fraud with that amount will always haunt you all over the world, good thing they were caught already, it's a karma point to all scammers.

oktana

sr. member

Activity: 1582

Merit: 281

Eloncoin.org - Mars, here we come!

£2bn is quite a lot of money. And it’s sad that now she gets to face the consequences while the real owner of the money is anonymous. I am trying to imagine what form of business that produced such amount of money because I think it’s more than trying to launder money. It could be stolen money which makes sense why it is laundered. It doesn’t always have to be tax evasion.

GbitG

sr. member

Activity: 812

Merit: 355

Quote from: avikz on May 31, 2024, 02:08:40 AM

Quote from: Plaguedeath on May 31, 2024, 01:53:13 AM

Sigh, the medias always use Bitcoin as a headline, reading the title it sounds like Bitcoin should be blamed since it was being used for money laundering.

~
Money laundering is happening since a long time and fiat is the main instrument for such illegal acts. There are countries like Switzerland, Cyprus or Cayman Islands whose economy is built on laundered money. No one talks about them!

Unfortunately the media wants attention by creating attention regarding things like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Yep mate !
Exactly media is just highlighting only Bitcoin Despite Money Laundering is happened in Fiat currency more than Bitcoin.

Here we can clearly see that the world top money laundering cases are just found in fiat currency rather than Bitcoin. But instead of Fiat currency they are just putting the whole blame on Bitcoin. So this shows that these people are bent on defaming Bitcoin.

But here I will give an anti-venom response to these fiat lovers regarding blaming Bitcoin that fiat lovers have been late, Bitcoin has already given so much damage to their poor concept which was supposed to be worthless in the public eye, by the hand of Satoshi. Now blame Bitcoin no matter how much you say. But Bitcoin is not going to stop everyone from liking to take Bitcoin as compared to fiat and in future more people will adopt Bitcoin.

So the accusation of money laundering cannot undermine Bitcoin. Those who know prefer Bitcoin over fiat currency.

nelson4lov

hero member

Activity: 2100

Merit: 794

Top Crypto Casino

Her prison sentence definitely serves her right. She definitely knew what she was doing when she was laundering money for her boss so she has to get their own fair share of punishments now that shit has hit the fan. Soon, we're going to realize that some of the richest bitcoiners/crypto folks we see in CT or any other crypto communities amass those assets from non-legal means. We're not set for that story.

Hopefully those monies will be returned tl the defrauded victims.

Kemarit

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1353

Quote from: coolcoinz on May 31, 2024, 03:23:02 PM

Quote from: odolvlobo on May 31, 2024, 01:37:24 AM

There are plenty of articles that explain more, such as this CoinDesk article:

Quote from: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/24/british-chinese-money-launder-sentenced-to-6-years-in-prison-for-role-in-6b-fraud-ft/

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.

Damn!

How do you get people to give you 5 billion dollars? I've seen some ponzi schemes and scams but they were usually in the millions, not billions. Even the famous Charles Ponzi stole $15 million.

She was delusional if she thought she could launder that much money. It's easy to hide $100k and not pay taxes from it, but once you start getting into millions it becomes much harder because expensive assets like real estate and cars can be registered. Someone has to pay property tax, get the required paperwork. You can't have 10 different names to hide 10 purchases because that's eventually going to come to light. You get into 100m+ and it becomes close to impossible.

Well she has a boss who duped a lot of Chinese businessman and then run away. And then this person uses the woman, a Chinese-British to help in laundering this huge amount of Bitcoin. This man was already convicted last March.

Quote

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.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/24/british-chinese-money-launder-sentenced-to-6-years-in-prison-for-role-in-6b-fraud-ft/

And she got what his boss got as well, guilty and six year and eight months in prison sentence.

batang_bitcoin

hero member

Activity: 2996

Merit: 600

Quote from: coolcoinz on May 31, 2024, 03:23:02 PM

Damn!

How do you get people to give you 5 billion dollars? I've seen some ponzi schemes and scams but they were usually in the millions, not billions. Even the famous Charles Ponzi stole $15 million.

Probably this is a big syndicate that have rotated in China. And even though they've got a lot of money, they haven't been aware of the red flags of these ponzi scams that have been offered to them.

Quote from: coolcoinz on May 31, 2024, 03:23:02 PM

She was delusional if she thought she could launder that much money. It's easy to hide $100k and not pay taxes from it, but once you start getting into millions it becomes much harder because expensive assets like real estate and cars can be registered. Someone has to pay property tax, get the required paperwork.

That is what typically they do, it's a big network of these fraudsters and money launderers. And it's true, they will still be required to sign papers.

Quote from: coolcoinz on May 31, 2024, 03:23:02 PM

You can't have 10 different names to hide 10 purchases because that's eventually going to come to light. You get into 100m+ and it becomes close to impossible.

And what the next thing they do is to hire a dummy, a dummy that will serve as owners of those. I think this is common for most mafias and big scam networks.

Renampun

sr. member

Activity: 2338

Merit: 365

★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!

Quote from: OcTradism on May 30, 2024, 11:39:26 PM

Quote from: SmartGold01 on May 30, 2024, 11:30:08 PM

"Jian Wen, 42, was involved in converting Bitcoin into assets like luxury houses.

This link has very little information and you can get more detail there.
Woman found with £2bn in Bitcoin convicted of money laundering arrangement offence

This gives some more information but still not clear enough. Information like she claims to get money from Bitcoin mining, then buy luxury things, jewellery from her illegal money.

I don't see the article has details about here criminal activities, maybe more details will come later when government completes their investigation on this case.

it's impossible for him to get caught because because of the cases mentioned above, usually money laundering is always connected to dirty businesses such as money from jui business, official corruption and illegal transactions (drugs or weapons) but I'm sure the media is deliberately deviating a little because they get some small money catch. Bitcoin mining is not a serious crime, even in countries that prohibit Bitcoin mining, so a light warning should be given to the perpetrator.

coolcoinz

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 1103

Quote from: odolvlobo on May 31, 2024, 01:37:24 AM

There are plenty of articles that explain more, such as this CoinDesk article:

Quote from: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/05/24/british-chinese-money-launder-sentenced-to-6-years-in-prison-for-role-in-6b-fraud-ft/

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.

Damn!

How do you get people to give you 5 billion dollars? I've seen some ponzi schemes and scams but they were usually in the millions, not billions. Even the famous Charles Ponzi stole $15 million.

She was delusional if she thought she could launder that much money. It's easy to hide $100k and not pay taxes from it, but once you start getting into millions it becomes much harder because expensive assets like real estate and cars can be registered. Someone has to pay property tax, get the required paperwork. You can't have 10 different names to hide 10 purchases because that's eventually going to come to light. You get into 100m+ and it becomes close to impossible.

el kaka22

legendary

Activity: 3570

Merit: 1162

www.Crypto.Games: Multiple coins, multiple games

Well, it is not really that unheard of, UK has a lot of criminals who leave their crimes in their own nation and go there, which doesn't mean that you can't do any crimes at UK, of course there are mobs and mafia there too, just means that foreign mobs go there to retire, whereas active ones work there.

A lot of foreign ones make billions, and they want to figure out a way to launder that money into UK systems, so that they can live happily ever after. Buying up houses is great, but you can't just buy a thousand houses that worths a million, you need to buy a few that worths a lot, to make it quicker. And this definitely is a great method, a lot of people do this in the USA as well, buy Manhattan skyscraper stuff, to launder it.

taufik123

legendary

Activity: 2576

Merit: 1785

Rollbit.com | Crypto Futures

Quote from: avikz on May 31, 2024, 02:08:40 AM

-snip-
Unfortunately the media wants attention by creating attention regarding things like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Don't forget that now Bitcoin has even reached a new ATH that could make bitcoin haters manipulate the media Or those who want to change the view of bitcoin are always negative and make the price drop drastically to get a more DIP price.

They give it a controversial title so that someone can click it, but if you just read the headline without looking at the content of the story,
it would be misleading, that's often the case nowadays.

About the money laundering case described by the OP, That's not even compared to the biggest money laundering case in the world, like the one that happened to Wachovia Bank. In 2010, the bank was found to have been involved in money laundering belonging to Mexican drug cartels amounting to US$390 billion during the period 2004-2007.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

But since the context involves bitcoin, money laundering news is always the subject of talk to discredit Bitcoin

Hazink

member

Activity: 65

Merit: 23

Quote from: LoyceV on May 31, 2024, 04:03:28 AM

Quote from: Catenaccio on May 31, 2024, 03:52:27 AM

Paying tax is to avoid legal troubles with government.
If you use illegal money to pay tax, you will have potential problems with governments and I believe no criminal will do it with their illegal money. They can try to do money laundering and get kind of legal money in their opinion, before they pay tax.

Say you have a billion dollars in a storage unit. You buy a car was in Albuquerque, and for every customer who washes their car, your wife Skyler enters an expensive car wash program into the cash registry. Then she adds the exact amount of criminal money into the drawer, and you can pay taxes on that amount. After that, you're just a very successful and tax paying car wash owner making loads of money from it!

Basically, what these guys need is just an active business to use and clean up their dirty money, not Bitcoin, as most people usually tag Bitcoin as the perfect means for such illegal activities. In fact, from observation, most of these offshore accounts and business owners are the perfect way to clean up their dirty money.

The car wash business is also a good example, as there is no price control of how much can be the maximum amount one can wash a single car, so you can increase the amount to any undoubtable number and make it official.

Big club houses are also perfect businesses that money launderers use; all that's needed is a registered business good accountant to cover up all the mess, and everything will be put in place unless there is a loophole that can also drag back attention to the place.

Marvelockg

member

Activity: 154

Merit: 84

★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!

Quote from: Davidvictorson on May 31, 2024, 12:10:44 AM

yhiaali3, OcTradism, btc78, and any other person who may have more questions to ask there is more to it:

According to the investigations, she is linked to a wider fraudulent scheme that originated from China. And it involves more than 61,000 Bitcoin. And spending proceeds of crime money makes her accomplice in it.

Quote

The subsequent investigation culminated in police seizing devices containing 61,000 bitcoins — currently worth more than $4 billion — in 2018, in what was the UK's largest-ever crypto seizure.

The funds are said to have come from an investment fraud operation in China led by her "employer," Yadi Zhang.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Sally-Ann Hales, KC, said that more than 128,000 investors pumped 40 billion Renminbi (roughly $5.6 billion) into the scheme.

"Some of the proceeds of this fraud were exchanged for bitcoin, loaded onto a cryptocurrency wallet and smuggled out of China on a laptop," she added.

This news source added more details - https://africa.businessinsider.com/news/former-chinese-takeaway-worker-jailed-for-money-laundering-after-police-seized-61000/7zb0m8r

I knew that something fishy must have been behind this and not just proceeds of Bitcoin mining. All these guys that steal people's funds through dubious means are the main anti bitcoinner that are tarnishing the image of genuine Bitcoin users making it seems as though anyone that's getting involved in Bitcoin holding got is Bitcoin from a wrong and illegitimate source.

If it's true that the Bitcoin in her possession are product of fraudulent endeavors then she deserve what she's getting cause she's truly an enemy to the effectiveness of the decentralized system.

jrrsparkles

sr. member

Activity: 2436

Merit: 272

Eloncoin.org - Mars, here we come!

Quote from: LoyceV on May 31, 2024, 04:03:28 AM

Quote from: Catenaccio on May 31, 2024, 03:52:27 AM

Paying tax is to avoid legal troubles with government.
If you use illegal money to pay tax, you will have potential problems with governments and I believe no criminal will do it with their illegal money. They can try to do money laundering and get kind of legal money in their opinion, before they pay tax.

Say you have a billion dollars in a storage unit. You buy a car was in Albuquerque, and for every customer who washes their car, your wife Skyler enters an expensive car wash program into the cash registry. Then she adds the exact amount of criminal money into the drawer, and you can pay taxes on that amount. After that, you're just a very successful and tax paying car wash owner making loads of money from it!

Breaking Bad as a reference. Cheesy

Indeed that's what money laundering is and launderers don't care how much money they lose in the name of tax because they want to spend the money they had or unless it is going to end up like what happened to Walter white's meth empire money that will be buried in the desert.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: Catenaccio on May 31, 2024, 03:52:27 AM

Paying tax is to avoid legal troubles with government.
If you use illegal money to pay tax, you will have potential problems with governments and I believe no criminal will do it with their illegal money. They can try to do money laundering and get kind of legal money in their opinion, before they pay tax.

Say you have a billion dollars in a storage unit. You buy a car was in Albuquerque, and for every customer who washes their car, your wife Skyler enters an expensive car wash program into the cash registry. Then she adds the exact amount of criminal money into the drawer, and you can pay taxes on that amount. After that, you're just a very successful and tax paying car wash owner making loads of money from it!

Catenaccio

full member

Activity: 420

Merit: 120

Quote from: LoyceV on May 31, 2024, 03:06:21 AM

This is a common misconception.

I agree tax evasion does not equal to money laundering because a person with legal money from jobs can still do tax evasion.

Quote

Money laundering is almost the opposite of tax evasion: criminals with illegal money want to pay taxes, so they can spend their money.

I only don't understand it all.

Paying tax is to avoid legal troubles with government.
If you use illegal money to pay tax, you will have potential problems with governments and I believe no criminal will do it with their illegal money. They can try to do money laundering and get kind of legal money in their opinion, before they pay tax.

Quote

That's why they launder money, and that includes paying taxes.

It can be one of their choices but not their first choice because it is so risky.

Reatim

sr. member

Activity: 2828

Merit: 357

Eloncoin.org - Mars, here we come!

Quote from: Sebas.tian on May 31, 2024, 12:32:46 AM

I think, she has some assets she sold some years ago that gave her some huge amount of capital to invest in Bitcoin, that made her to achieved the €2b worth of Bitcoin. The mistakes she made is to released all her Bitcoin to acquired those assets in her country when she knew that Bitcoin is illegal in that particular country,

Is bitcoin illegal in the UK? I don’t think so.

Quote

because the amount of funds she use to purchased all those assets at once, it will make the government to suspect her for money laundry.

There is not much details in the article so we can’t make much assumptions however I think what she did wrong is that she did not have the appropriate documents revealing her assets. Even if it is in crypto form, in the eyes of the government you have to let them know about it. Which a lot of crypto enthusiasts are not very happy about since they greatly value their privacy.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: btc78 on May 30, 2024, 11:38:11 PM

What I am wondering about is why did she have to launder the money? Is it because she did not want to pay taxes?

This is a common misconception. Money laundering is almost the opposite of tax evasion: criminals with illegal money want to pay taxes, so they can spend their money. Having 2 billion pounds in stolen money doesn't do you any good if you can't spend it, which means you need to make it look as if you're the legal owner of that criminal money. That's why they launder money, and that includes paying taxes. Even if half of it would go to taxes, having 1 billion that you can spend is still a lot better than having 2 billion which you can't spend.

avikz

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1500

Quote from: Plaguedeath on May 31, 2024, 01:53:13 AM

Sigh, the medias always use Bitcoin as a headline, reading the title it sounds like Bitcoin should be blamed since it was being used for money laundering.

That's what! Media houses will always highlight Bitcoin here because they know it will generate more search value and make people intrigued to click on their link.

Money laundering is happening since a long time and fiat is the main instrument for such illegal acts. There are countries like Switzerland, Cyprus or Cayman Islands whose economy is built on laundered money. No one talks about them!

Unfortunately the media wants attention by creating attention regarding things like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Topic: [Bitcoin] woman found with £2bn worth of bitcoin - page 2. (Read 531 times)