Weekend Wrap: 6 years jail for BTC launderer, Ulbricht thanks Trump and more
Bitcoin launderer caught after trying to buy luxe properties British-Chinese woman Jian Wen was sentenced to six years and eight months in jail by London’s Southwark Crown Court on May 24 for her role in laundering over $1 million worth of Bitcoin Wen, a former hospitality worker, was busted after Know Your Customer (KYC) questions asked by a local law firm when she tried to buy multimillion-dollar properties in London, The Law Society Gazette reported. She was convicted in March for entering into or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement. Wen laundered Bitcoin for her ex-boss Yadi Zhang — who claims she is innocent. Wen wasn’t accused of being involved in the original fraud, according to the Financial Times. Wen’s lawyer Mark Harries KC said she was “undoubtedly duped and used,” but Judge Sally-Ann Hales KC had “no doubt that” Wen “knew, rather than merely suspected, that you were dealing in the proceeds of crime.”
BTCUSD in connection with a $6.3 billion fraud in China.
Ross Ulbricht thanks Trump for pardon promise
Ross Ulbricht, the jailed founder of the online black market Silk Road, has expressed his appreciation for Donald Trump for promising to free him if again made president.
“Last night, Donald Trump pledged to commute my sentence on day 1, if reelected. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” Ulbricht wrote in a May 26 X post. His account is managed by his family, and he dictates posts from prison.
Ulbricht has served ten years of his life sentence with no parole after his 2015 conviction for his role in owning and operating Silk Road.
“We’re going to get him home,” Trump told a crowd at a Libertarian Party Convention.
Coinbase ‘Stand with Crypto’ lobbying effort hits the UK
Coinbase’s crypto advocacy nonprofit “Stand with Crypto” has officially launched its first international expansion in the United Kingdom.
In a May 24 blog post, Coinbase said its new British arm put on a launch event at the U.K. Parliament which it claimed was attended by around 100 crypto industry workers, investors, academics and the media.
Coinbase claimed the U.K was its “largest international market” with “over 6 million crypto holders.”
Earlier this month, Stand with Crypto launched a Political Action Committee (PAC) in the United States ahead of the country’s November presidential election.
Other news
Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital partnered with Kenya’s Energy Ministry to catch underused energy to power mining rigs.
Pro footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has done a fourth nonfungible token (NFT) collection with Binance, even though he’s facing a class-action suit in Florida over his other ones.