British authorities seized $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2021 after a former restaurant worker tried to use Bitcoins to buy a $30 million London mansion. The funds are said to come from a huge Chinese fraud case years ago.
Bitcoin money laundering case
The huge pile of bitcoins was seized after 42-year-old Jian Weng, a Chinese man who moved to the UK in 2007 and became a British citizen in 2018, tried to buy a townhouse in Hamstead.
As previously mentioned, the property was for sale for around $30 million, but the purchase fell through as Wen could not explain the origin of his crypto assets. In addition to this villa, Wen also tried to buy all sorts of other luxury items.
Sky News reported on January 30 that Wen is accused of acting as an intermediary in concealing criminal proceeds from an investment fraud allegedly committed by Zhimin Qian in China between 2014 and 2017.
Qian acquired crypto to extract revenue from the country before emigrating to the UK, using the fake identity “Yadi Zhang”.
Wen himself is said not to have been involved in the fraud committed by Qian, but is on trial on three charges of money laundering between October 2017 and January 2022.
Wen doesn’t deny trading Bitcoin, but claims she was Zhang’s carer. Now it’s up to the jury to decide whether Wen knew or suspected the money came from illegal activities.
Seizure of $1.7 billion worth of BTC
In the summer of 2021, British police searched the six-bedroom house the two were reportedly renting in northwest London. Hardware wallets containing more than 61,000 Bitcoins, then worth $1.7 billion, were seized by police.
Initially, Wen claimed that she had mined the Bitcoins herself. She then changed her story and said it was a “love gift” and presented a certificate stating that she had received 3,000 BTC from Qian.
While Wen awaits her sentence, Qian has fled Britain and remains at large.