Two Chinese citizens who laundered more than $63 million in a sophisticated international operation have been jailed.
Boliang Liu, 37, and Tao Zhou, 41, admitted dealing with millions of dollars suspected to be the proceeds of crime between July 2020 and October 2021.
Liu operated a money remittance business where customers gave him cash that he received into numerous bank accounts he held under different names.
Each individual deposit was made in $10,000 transactions to avoid legal reporting requirements.
Liu accepted the cash, made the deposits and then transferred the funds into his client's overseas bank accounts in exchange for a commission.
Zhou was the "money runner" for Liu and co-offender Wei Wang, who ran a similar remittance business, and received commissions from both men.
Zhou collected cash from or on behalf of Liu and Wang, and then went to hundreds of ATMs to deposit the cash into multiple bank accounts.
When police arrested Liu at his home in October 2021, they seized a Porsche, Gucci bags, three luxury watches, Mike Tyson memorabilia and close to $1 million in cash.
Zhou was found with $180,000 in cash, several bank cards, a Crown Casino membership card, computers and phones.
In total, Liu dealt with $33,652,549 in cash while Zhou dealt with $30,145,223.
County Court Judge Michael Cahill on Wednesday described the offending as a "sophisticated operation" as he sentenced the pair for laundering an "eye-watering" amount of cash.
Liu was jailed for five years and six months but he will be eligible for parole after three years and six months. He has already served just under three years of pre-sentence detention.
Zhou was sentenced to three years and six months' jail, with a non-parole period of two years and three months.
It was not alleged the pair knew where the cash came from although it appeared they were at least suspicious, Judge Cahill said.
The funds likely came from criminal sources because of the considerable sums and the way the deposits were made, he said.
Judge Cahill accepted both men entered guilty pleas at the earliest opportunity, they had no prior convictions and were facing deportation back to China because of their crimes.
But the offending was serious and it was important the community was deterred from committing similar crimes.
Zhou also pleaded guilty to separate charges of obtaining and attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception, relating to offending he committed while on bail for the money laundering.
Zhou was jailed for one year and nine months for those crimes, with six months of that sentence to be served at the same time as his money laundering jail term.
Wang is due to face the County Court in October for a plea hearing.
