British police have discovered $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency linked to a woman accused of laundering funds from a $6 billion investment scam in China, prosecutors said at a trial in London.
Jian Wen, 42, a British citizen, denies charges of laundering large amounts of money that prosecutors say came from her criminal partner Zhimin Qiang, who is wanted in China for masterminding a massive financial scheme that affected hundreds of thousands of investors. The whereabouts of Zhiming, also known as Yadi Zhang, remain unknown.
A police search of Jian’s rented London mansion in 2018 uncovered laptops, USB drives and notepads containing passwords and cryptocurrency wallets containing hundreds of millions of dollars each in Bitcoin, according to prosecutors.
“It is confirmed that Yadi Zhang was present at the scene and was upstairs in bed,” defense lawyer Gillian Jones told the jury. Jian later left the UK.
The discovery of the cryptocurrency comes after Jian’s failed attempts to purchase two houses in London worth around $15 million and $30 million. The reason for the failure was that she was unable to provide the lawyer involved in the transactions with sufficient evidence of the origin of the funds.
Prosecutors say Jian told her lawyer in 2017 that Zhimin “mined and gave me bitcoins” as a “love gift.” This house was to be the couple’s “first home”. Jian also searched online for information on how to use Bitcoin to buy property in the UK and exchange it for cash without having to verify the source of the funds.
In 2019, a Dubai-based investment advisor suggested a way for Jian to sell bitcoin locally for cash without proper verification, to which she responded, “Cool.”
In a written statement to police, Jian stated that she worked with Zhimin as a caregiver and translator and received 3,000 bitcoins for this. She knew little about cryptocurrency and did not realize that it was the source of Zhimin’s wealth.
Jian was arrested in 2021. During the investigation, a letter was discovered that said: “I will die
