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London's Southwark Crown Court heard on Friday that a British woman of Chinese descent was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for laundering bitcoin proceeds from a £5 billion fraud perpetrated by her employer in China.
Jian Wen, 42, was convicted in March of laundering money for her former boss, a Chinese woman named Yadi Zhang.
When Metropolitan police raided Wen and Zhang's Hampstead home in 2018, they seized a device containing 61,000 bitcoin, now worth more than £3 billion.
The Metropolitan Police had initially investigated Wen for allegedly trying to buy a London mansion with Bitcoin, making it the world's largest law enforcement seizure of cryptocurrency.
British prosecutors say her then-boss ran a £5 billion fraud in China and stole the funds. Zhang's lawyers say she is “totally innocent.”
Wen was tried twice and acquitted of 10 other charges, but was found guilty of laundering some of the profits between 2017 and 2022. He was not suspected of involvement in the original fraud allegations.
Judge Sally Ann Hales said: “I have no doubt that you knew, not merely suspected, that you were dealing with the proceeds of crime.”
“This was a sophisticated and meticulously planned crime,” she added.
Wen, who is accused of helping convert some of the bitcoin into cash, jewelry, other luxury items and real estate, has pleaded not guilty and has consistently denied knowing that his employer's funds had been stolen.
“Ms Wen was a vulnerable and desperate woman who undoubtedly was deceived and taken advantage of,” Ms Wen's lawyer Mark Harries KC told the court. The court heard that Ms Wen has not seen her 16-year-old son for 26 months. Ms Wen has been in custody since March 2022.
“I do not agree that your lawyer has categorised you as a victim,” the judge said.
Wen admitted to controlling the bitcoin wallet but claimed he was unaware of the cryptocurrency's origins.
Gillian Jones, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, said Wen's transactions “took place against the backdrop of warnings being given to Mr Wen about the source of the bitcoin.”
Between 2017 and 2020, Wen used multiple intermediaries to convert his cryptocurrency into other assets, including Dubai-based real estate agent Michael James Burke, who helped Wen sell his bitcoin through his companies in the Seychelles and Switzerland to buy property in Dubai.
The Metropolitan Police are currently carrying out civil recovery procedures to confiscate all seized funds and are in contact with the Chinese authorities.
“The Chinese side is already conducting international law enforcement cooperation with the UK on this case,” China's Foreign Ministry told the Financial Times.
“Law enforcement agencies of both countries are actively pursuing operations related to tracking fugitives and recovering assets,” it added.
The cooperation comes after groups representing victims of a £5 billion fraud scheme in China wrote to Beijing's foreign ministry last month, urging it to open negotiations with the UK government to recover bitcoin purchased with victims' funds.
