A member of staff at a Chinese takeaway who helped launder Bitcoin from a £5 billion investment fraud has been ordered to pay back £3.1 million or face more than 13 years behind bars.
Jian Wen, 43, acted as a front in the sceheme after more than 128,000 investors were ripped off in a wealth management scam. The takeaway worker tried to buy some of London’s most expensive properties, including a £23 million mansion in Hampstead.
Wen arrived in the UK in 2007, living modestly in Leeds from 2011 to 2017 before she began working at a Chinese takeaway in Abbey Wood, southeast London. While using Chinese social media app WeChat she spotted and answered an ad to be a ‘butler’ for a woman who claimed to run a business trading in diamonds and antiques across the world.
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Wen moved to the UK in 2007 and lived modestly in Leeds for years
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She then moved to a six-bedroom Hampstead Heath home, paying £17,000 a month in rent, in September 2017. The takeaway worker drove a Mercedes and flew her son from China 18 months later so he could attend the £6,000-a-term Heathside prep school nearby. Wen also drove a £25,000 E-Class Mercedes and spent £30,000-a-month at Harrods.
Police raided the Hamsptead property, known as the Manor House and seized a safety desposit box containing digitial wallets holding more than £1.4 billion worth of Bitcoin. Wen denied but was convicted by a jury at Southwark Crown Court of entering or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement between October 2017 and January 2022. The charge related to the laundering of 150 Bitcoin worth around £7.5m.
Wen moved to a Hampstead property where she paid £17k a month in rent
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Wen had insisted she had no idea the Bitcoin came from the proceeds of fraud and claimed she had been duped by one of the fraudsters. She said she helped run a legitimate jewellery business which had branches in Singapore, Malaysia and China. But she was convicted and jailed for six years and eight months last May.
Judge Sally-Ann Hales, KC, said: “I find that the defendant Jian Wen had a criminal lifestyle. I find the benefit of her criminal conduct to be £3,500,113.28.” The judge found the available amount to be £3,126,572, and ordered her to pay that sum. She will be jailed for seven years if she does not pay that sum in three months. The recoverable amount derives from the Bitcoin and two properties in Dubai. Wen has been released from prison on license under the early release scheme.
Wen denied knowing that some, or all the Bitcoin was derived from criminality and had no suspicions about its scale
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Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor said: “The CPS and the Metropolitan Police have successfully brought Jian Wen to justice. Wen is a sophisticated money launderer who laundered many millions of the proceeds of crime. We have today secured a Confiscation Order against her of more than £3.1m, which she must pay within 3 months or risk being returned to prison for an additional sentence of seven years.
“In the last five years, over £450 million has been recovered from CPS obtained Confiscation Orders, ensuring that thousands of convicted criminals cannot profit from their offending. £88m of that amount has been returned to victims of crime, by way of compensation.”
A Metropolitan Police investigation resulted in the seizure of Bitcoin wallets, with an initial estimated value of more than £300 million
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Detective Chief Superintendent Nick Blackburn, from the Metropolitan Police, said: “I’d like to thank the team of highly skilled detectives who, alongside colleagues at the CPS, brought Wen to justice. I hope the conclusion of today’s hearing sends a clear message to criminals who use sophisticated means to obtain funds illegally. They should be in no doubt that we will pursue them with persistence, determination and vigour.”
Andrew Penhale, Chief Crown Prosecutor, earlier said: “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used by organised criminals to disguise and transfer assets, so that fraudsters may enjoy the benefits of their criminal conduct. This case, involving the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the UK, illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to those fraudsters. The CPS is committed to working closely with law enforcement and investigatory authorities, to bring to justice individuals and companies who engage in laundering criminal proceeds through cryptocurrency.”