In a big legal case, Southwark Crown Court in London decided on a very important matter, giving Jian Wen a time-out in prison for six years and eight months. Jian Wen got into big trouble for washing dirty money from a huge $5.6 billion trick involving Bitcoin, a kind of internet money. This important news came from Bloomberg Crypto and shows how serious folks are about ensuring rules are kept, even with computer money.

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• Jian Wen receives a prison sentence of six years and eight months for her role in a $5.6 billion Bitcoin laundering scheme.
• Over 61,000 bitcoins were seized in a fraud crackdown, tied to a scheme Wen was involved in handling about 150 bitcoins.
• New EU rules are set up to fight crime in crypto, showing bigger fights against crypto fraud.

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London Court Convicts Woman in $5.6 Billion Cryptocurrency Fraud Case

The trial that ended on Friday was about Jian Wen, who managed around 150 bitcoins for a person from China from 2017 to 2022. This was part of a bigger, trickier plan that made the police grab more than 61,000 bitcoins, worth over $4 billion. This shows just how massive this sneaky plan really was.

Judge Sally-Ann Hales, who was in charge of the case, said the sneaky plan was very clever and took a lot of planning. She was sure that Jian Wen knew she was dealing with money that didn’t come from good places. Although Jian Wen said she was tricked and didn’t know about the trick, she was still found guilty of one count of cleaning dirty money. The story of how her life changed so much, from working in a fast-food place to living in a big, fancy house, made everyone very curious about how she got so much money.

Jian Wen’s helpers argued against the accusations, saying she got her bitcoin correctly. But Judge Hales clarified that Jian Wen knew she was handling money from bad actions.

This is happening as many places in Europe are making their rules stricter about hiding stolen money, especially for people who use online money like Bitcoin. Making these rules stronger helps stop bad people from doing sneaky things with money, including the money we use online.

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