Jian Wen came to Britain to ‘enjoy the better things in life’.
The 42-year-old drove a E-Class Mercedes-Benz, indulged in £30,000 Harrods shopping sprees and enrolled her son at prestigious £6,000-a-term Heathside Preparatory School near her £5 million home.
It was only when she embarked on building a global property empire, attempting to buy a £23m Hampstead mansion, a £10million Tuscan villa and apartments in Dubai that alarm bells started to ring about the single mother who barely had £5,000 to her name when she arrived in the UK to work in a Chinese takeaway.
Yesterday the Chinese immigrant who helped launder Bitcoin from a £5bn investment fraud was jailed for more than six years.
Judge Sally-Ann Hales, KC, said Wen played a key role in a sophisticated criminal enterprise who was ‘generously rewarded’ for her work laundering the proceeds of a wealth management swindle in China, where 128,000 investors were duped.
Jian Wen (pictured) came to Britain to ‘enjoy the better things in life’
Wen tried to buy a £23million Hampstead mansion (pictured) – prompting alarm bells to ring over the source of the funds
Police have linked Wen’s accounts to a staggering £3.4billion in the cryptocurrency, which she was helping a fraudster to launder in Britain.
A receipt for £75,000 worth of diamonds bought in Zurich
After Wen moved to Britain in 2007 she ended up living below a Chinese restaurant in London, earning just £5,979 a year.
But life changed after she saw an advert on Chinese social media app WeChat to be a ‘butler’ for a woman who claimed to run an international business trading in diamonds and antiques.
Just weeks after meeting the woman at a five-star hotel in Kensington, Wen moved to a £5million six-bedroom manor house near Hampstead Heath rented for £17,000 a month.
The pair travelled around the world, holidaying in Europe, Thailand and Dubai under various aliases, while Wen opened a series of cryptocurrency accounts making meticulous notes of transactions in a Wallace and Gromit notebook.
They sold Bitcoin and bought fine jewellery, splashing out on over £44,000 worth of gems at Christopher Walser Vintage Diamonds in Zurich, and watches worth £119,000 from Van Cleef & Arpels.
In three months, more than £90,000 was spent in Harrods on designer clothing, jewellery and shoes using a rewards card in Wen’s name.
She snapped up two apartments in Dubai for more than £500,000 and looked into buying a £10m 18th century Tuscan villa with a sea view.
Wen then attempted to buy a £23.5m seven-bedroom Hampstead mansion with a swimming pool and a nearby £12.5m home with a cinema and gym.
Wen was living in a basement room under a Chinese takeaway in Abbey Wood, south-east London. But within weeks, she moved into this fabulous six-bedroom house in Hampstead Heath, paying £17,000 a month in rent in September 2017
Wen jetted across Europe, including to Germany. She denied knowing she was involved in money laundering and insisted she had been duped by her boss
Piles of cash were found by police during searches connected to Jian Wen
Jian Wen took meticulous notes in a Wallace and Gromit notebook showing what was bought and sold in terms of crypto. In this one she said ‘I’ll be dead if they broke the BTC code’ – BTC is a reference to Bitcoin
But the spending spree triggered anti-money laundering checks and the purchases were halted after she could not explain the source of the Bitcoin she planned to use to pay for the properties.
Wen initially claimed the cryptocurrency had been mined, then said it was given to her as a ‘love present’.
Scotland Yard launched a major investigation making the UK’s biggest-ever cryptocurrency seizure in 2021 when more than 61,000 Bitcoin were discovered in digital wallets hidden in a safety deposit box.
The cryptocurrency was worth £1.4billion at the time, but its value has now risen to £3.4billion.
Wen insisted she had been duped by her boss.
Her lawyer Mark Harris, KC, said: ‘Ms Wen was a fragile, desperate woman whose self-esteem cannot have been in a very high place at all.
‘She was a vulnerable woman. She was undoubtedly duped and used.’ But Judge Hales told the defendant: ‘I am in no doubt that you came to enjoy the better things in life.
‘The evidence showed that you were generously rewarded for your services.
‘It is submitted on your behalf that your culpability falls into the medium range. I do not agree. The offending was sophisticated and it involved significant planning.
Wen poses at the Lindt shop in Zurich on one of her trips to Europe. She claimed it was to buy items for a jewellery business, producing receipts for diamonds and watches
Wen went to Norway on business too. It was an incredible transformation for a woman who had been living above or below Chinese takeaways for years
‘I do not agree that your involvement in the offence was due to any element of exploitation.
‘I do not agree with your counsel’s characterisation of you as a victim.’
Wen was sentenced to six years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court for entering or becoming concerned in a money laundering arrangement between October 2017 and January 2022