28 year old HUANG Xiao Tong is from a well-off family in Beijing. She attended Stirling University reading for a Master's Degree in Publishing. She was approached by MA Wai, a Chinese gangster operating in Glasgow and agreed to accept cash from him, to pay it into designated bank accounts and then buy expensive items and send them to China in a form of black market Remini exchange.

Estimates of the amount laundered by Huang started at GBP300,000, then dropped to about half that and by the end of the trial it was proved that GBP85,000 approx was laundered, of which almost half had been used to pay university fees and accommodation, suggesting that MA and HUANG's parents operated a Fei Chien ("flying money" or Chop)-style arrangement where they put money in China at MA's disposal and he made the college funding available in the UK.

HUANG did her case no good at all: she claimed the money was from her fiancé in Germany who had since died; then it came from fellow students at the university but they had all gone home, and from her parents. They didn't attend the trial or give evidence.

She was on very shaky ground. While under surveillance, she collected brown paper bags full of cash from MA and put the money into Santander, Starling and at least one other bank. She went on to buy, amongst other things, wine for GBP7,000 and sent it to China. She sent some GBP37,000 to China by bank transfer and bought goods from the likes of Gucci, Lancome, Burberry, Louis Vuitton from Harvey Nichols, Harrods and House of Fraser.

But perhaps the thing that most powerfully sunk her defence on charges of laundering money related to serious organised crime was when she declared that a bag of cash was in fact full of home-made dumplings.

She has been sentenced to 28 months in jail.

MA has absconded.

Further Reading: https://www.copfs.gov.uk/about-copfs/news/23-05-student-jailed-for-mone…