'Degree of sophistication': Man jailed over $33 million money laundering racket

A man will be sentenced to more than two years in prison for operating a sophisticated money laundering scheme involving $33 million. Wei Wang learned his fate in the County Court of Melbourne on Thursday, after previously pleading guilty to four counts of dealing with the proceeds of suspected crime.

He ran a remittance business where customers would give him cash, which he would then deposit into bank accounts opened under different names. Wang would give the cash to a runner, Tao Zhu, to deposit at hundreds of ATMs, and then he would transfer the funds to customers' overseas bank accounts, taking a commission in the process.

He thought authorities wouldn't notice millions of dollars in cash being deposited into dozens of bank accounts in $10,000 installments, but he was wrong. Between February and October 2021, about 1635 bank deposits totaling more than $12.7 million were made into 38 different accounts. Additionally, from April 2021, he also ran a cryptocurrency remittance business, laundering over $16.9 million.

The Chinese national was arrested in October 2021, with police finding $100,000 cash in a bag at his Blackburn home in Melbourne's east, and another $117,000 in a Gucci box in his car. "Your offending was sustained, involved a degree of sophistication, and only came to an end when you were arrested by police," Judge Michael Cahill said.

However, the judge said Wang's guilty plea showed genuine remorse for his crimes, and acknowledged that before his offending, he had lived a "blameless life." He also acknowledged Wang's anxiety about the possibility of being deported back to China after serving his sentence. Judge Cahill sentenced Wang, who had been on bail, to a maximum of three years and nine months in jail.

He will be eligible for parole after serving two years and six months in prison and has already served 70 days. Wang's case serves as another reminder of the complexity of money laundering operations and the determination of law enforcement to combat such crimes.