Chinese brothers-in-law jailed for total of eight years for buying 10 TONS of scrap coins and cleaning them before selling them back to country of origin

Laing Enmei and Wang Chuwei jailed for buying and selling foreign currency



Laing, an antiques dealer, employed scrap-dealer Wang to clean scrap coins

Over ten months, Wang cleaned ten tons of coins worth more than £700,000

Laing then used his business to sell the coins back to countries of origin



Laing sentenced to six years for scam, while Wang sentenced to two years



Brothers-in-law Liang Enmei and Wang Chuwei were jailed for six years and two years after being found guilty of buying and selling foreign currency

Two Chinese men have been jailed after buying imported coins that were due to be recycled, cleaning them up, and selling them back to the country of origin.

Liang Enmei, an antique dealer, was sentenced to six years in jail, along with brother-in-law Wang Chuwei, 57, who was given a two year jail term.



The pair were found guilty of buying and selling ten tons of foreign currency, valued at more than £700,000.



Damaged coins are routinely taken out of circulation and are supposed to be shredded before being handed over to scrap metal dealers.



But these coins were sold whole to China where, instead of being melted down, they were cleaned up and sold back to the country of origin for a vast profit.

Liang, an antique dealer from Shanghai, employed brother-in-law Wang, a scrap metal dealer, to clean the coins over a ten month period in his workshop.



Wang, from Wenling in China's eastern Zhejiang province, claimed he didn't know what he was doing was illegal.

Chinese officials have refused to say which countries the coins were taken from.

Police spokesman Guo Kao said: 'In total he purchased 10 tons of old foreign coins but instead of melting down he simply cleaned them up and sold them on.

Laing, an antiques dealer from Shanghai, employed Wang, a scrap metal dealer, to clean scrap coins before selling them back to their country of origin

Over the course of ten months Wang cleaned ten tons of imported coins worth more than £700,000

'Business for him was so good that even took on other members of his family including his brother-in-law Liang Enmei, an antique dealer in Shanghai, to help recycle the coins and send them back to the coins' original countries.



'Liang, who was well aware that what he was doing was illegal, was sentenced to six years in jail.'

The problem of recycling coins destined for the scrapheap is well known in China.



Coins taken out of circulation are supposed to be shredded before being handed over to scrap metal dealers, but these were sold on whole (pictured, Wang's workshop where the coins were cleaned)

Wang, 57, received two years after claiming he didn't know what he was doing was illegal. Laing, who knew the activity was illegal, got six years (pictured, coins are taken out of Wang's workshop)

In another case in Zhejiang province, a group of three people involved in a similar business were earlier sentenced between seven years and nine months in jail for recycling and selling foreign coins worth 130million yuan (£12million).

And in another case, a Chinese gang were sold one and two Euro coins - which appear similar to £2 coins - with the centre disc removed from the outer ring and asked to scrap them.