Former takeaway worker found with Bitcoin wallets worth more than £2bn

A former takeaway worker was found with Bitcoin wallets worth more than £2 billion. Jian Wen lived in a flat above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds when she got involved in a criminal scheme that converted the cryptocurrency into assets like multi-million pound houses and thousands of pounds worth of jewellery.

This seizure of Bitcoin is believed to be the largest ever. Wen has now been convicted of a crime linked to money laundering.

Prosecutors said there was no legitimate proof of how the Bitcoin was obtained and they alleged it's connected to an investment scam in China. Another person is thought to be behind in the fraud but they are still at large.

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Wen’s new lifestyle saw her move into a six-bedroom house in north London in 2017, with rent of more than £17,000 per month. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said she posed as an employee of an international jewellery business, and moved her son to the UK to attend private school.

From autumn 2017 she tried to buy a string of expensive houses in London but struggled to pass money-laundering checks, and her claims that she had earned millions mining Bitcoin were not believed.

She also travelled abroad, buying jewellery worth tens of thousands of pounds in Zurich and buying properties in Dubai in 2019.

On Wednesday, Wen was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of being involved in money laundering. She will be sentenced on May 10.

The guilty charge relates to 150 Bitcoin being laundered - which is worth around £7.5m. However the Metropolitan Police said its investigation had linked her to a wider fraudulent operation and it seized more than 61,000 Bitcoin.

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