Former takeaway worker with Bitcoin worth over £2bn sentenced to six years in prison

A former takeaway worker found with Bitcoin wallets worth more than £2 billion has been jailed for more than six years following a five-year cryptocurrency investigation.

Jian Wen, 42, was living in a flat above a Chinese restaurant in Leeds when she was involved in a criminal racket converting cryptocurrency into assets including multi-million pound homes and thousands of pounds of jewelry.

The Bitcoin seizure is considered the largest ever of its kind.

She was sentenced to six years and eight months' imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday for entering into or being involved in a money laundering arrangement.

Prosecutors previously said there was no legitimate evidence of how the Bitcoin was acquired and alleged it was linked to investment fraud in China.

Another suspect is believed to be behind the fraud, but he remains at large.

Wen's new lifestyle saw her move into a six-bedroom house in north London in 2017, with rent of more than £17,000 a month, where she posed as an employee of an international jewelry company and transferred his son to the UK to attend private lessons. school, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Starting in autumn 2017, she attempted to buy a series of expensive homes in London, but struggled to pass money laundering checks, and her claims that she had made millions mining Bitcoin were not believed.

She also traveled abroad, buying jewelry worth tens of thousands of pounds in Zurich and purchasing properties in Dubai in 2019.

In March, Wen was found guilty of one count of entering into or being concerned in a money laundering arrangement at Southwark Crown Court.

The charge relates to the laundering of 150 Bitcoins, which at the time was worth £1.7 million, but the Metropolitan Police said its investigation linked it to a more fraudulent transaction. wide and that she had seized more than 61,000 Bitcoins.

The CPS obtained a freezing order from the High Court while it carried out a civil recovery investigation.

Following Wen's conviction, Commander Steve Clayman, whose team led the Met Police investigation, said: “Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of the Met's highly skilled detectives, we were able to disrupt a sophisticated economic crime operation – the scale of which is considerable. shows how international criminals seek to exploit cryptocurrency for illegal purposes.

“Our team helped achieve justice and persevered to find this Bitcoin and identify the crime it was linked to.”