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A Sugar Land man who last year was indicted and accused of laundering a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} in a cryptocurrency scheme pleaded responsible final week to aggravated id theft.
Xiaofei Chen, 37, will likely be sentenced early subsequent yr, in keeping with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of Texas. He faces no less than two years in jail below obligatory sentencing guidelines, in keeping with a information launch. He could possibly be sentenced to a 3rd yr in jail by U.S. District Court docket Choose Alfred H. Bennett.
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Chen, who additionally goes by the title Anthony Chen, was indicted in December on 10 expenses over accusations he accessed an individual’s checking account and wired $520,000 to himself in 2018, officers mentioned. He then transformed the cash into bitcoin, laundered it throughout a number of cryptocurrency exchanges after which used the cash to make luxurious purchases, together with a $59,000 Jeep Wrangler and a $78,000 Audi RS5.
Charging paperwork referred to as Chen’s scheme “advanced.” Posing as his sufferer, he used a job web site to rent one other individual to behave as a authorized fiduciary. The unwitting confederate was introduced with cast paperwork that gave him energy of lawyer over the sufferer’s checking account. The confederate then used that entry to switch cash to Chen, in keeping with charging paperwork.
If he had been convicted on all the fees, Chen might have confronted as much as 30 years in jail. The plea settlement waives the opposite expenses, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.
Chen will stay free till his sentencing, in keeping with prosecutors.
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