Seven people have been jailed for running a £55 million clandestine money laundering ring that targeted international students trying to circumvent limits on the amount of cash they could take out of China.
Four people – three men and one woman – were found guilty of various money laundering offences at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday. Three more people were convicted of similar offences in June and given prison terms ranging from 11 months to 12 years.
Chinese citizens cannot send more than $50,000 (£38,000) a year out of the country for personal use, and to control this, they are required to process all transactions through a foreign currency exchange account opened at a Chinese bank account.
Some people circumvent the restrictions by using “underground banking,” which a 2019 report by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) said is probably “widespread among Chinese people living in the UK.”
Investigators in Stoke Newington, north London, found that £55 million was laundered between the group through underground banks in China between February 2020 and June 2023.
Police executed two arrest warrants simultaneously in December 2022. A search of the home of Xiaoyu Zhou, 29, and Ying Ying Wang, 28, in London's Canary Wharf found more than £104,000 in carrier bags hidden in a wardrobe.
A second warrant was executed at the address of Yuncheng Fan, 28, where several cash counting machines and cash bags were found. Officers seized assets from the group totalling approximately £500,000.
Specialist investigators found that Xu and Huang used Chinese messaging apps to sell British pounds to university students to circumvent foreign currency restrictions, and worked for someone who arranged to collect large sums of cash, up to £250,000 at a time.
The pair were unaware of the identities of the people receiving the cash and were instructed to take photographs of £5 notes, including their unique serial numbers, which were then given to the courier, allowing the transaction to take place without either party knowing the identity of the other – to prevent either party from passing information to the police if they were arrested.
Police also discovered that Peng Liu, 28, and Ang Li, 26, also from Canary Wharf, were assisting the group by running an unregistered money business.When police searched their address in Canary Wharf in June 2023, a calculating machine and £14,600 were found.
Police subsequently identified Wang Qiqi, 29, from Manchester, as the leader of the group, and a search of his address uncovered numerous mobile phones, computers, bank cards in other people's names and a cash counting machine.
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Another suspect, Luolan Chen, 28, of Manchester, was also found to have assisted the group by running an unregistered financial services business.
Detective Inspector Zac Rowe, from Stoke Newington Police's Crime Unit, said: “Thanks to the hard work and tenacity of highly skilled officers from the Metropolitan police, we have been able to disrupt a sophisticated economic crime. The sheer scale of this money laundering will translate into other crimes such as illegal drug supply, prostitution and human trafficking.”
“This sentence, and the three-year lengthy investigation that led to it, demonstrates that no matter how complex the case, we will do everything in our power to catch criminals seeking to reap the benefits of illicit funds.”
Lead lawyer Ben Maguire, from law firm QEB Hollis Whiteman, said: “This successful prosecution has helped to root out a criminal organisation and prevent those involved in it from profiting from their fraudulent activities.”
