London court trial accused British-Chinese woman of £5bn Bitcoin fraud in China

Jian Wen has been charged with three counts of money laundering on behalf of a Chinese woman called Yadi Zhang for involvement in money laundering activities.

Yadi Zhang is a Chinese woman. Allegedly she collected nearly £5 billion worth of Bitcoin funds via fake wealth fund management services. She collected this large amount of Bitcoin from 128,000 Chinese people between 2014 to 2017. In 2017, she arrived in London. 

As per Monday’s trial, Yadi Zhang secured help from a 42-year-old person Jian Wen to convert his Bitcoin into pure white money. 

Before 2017, Wen was doing a job at a restaurant & was living in an average place with average facilities but when Zhang came in contact with him in 2017 then he started to live in a luxurious place with high-class facilities. Wen helped her to buy different types of properties from Bitcoin e.g. houses, properties, jewellery, etc. 

During the court trial, Wen said that he was unaware of Zhang’s illegal business which was conducted by her in China and also said that he thought that her big wealth was because of her jewellery & other business. 

In short, Wen admitted that he helped that woman to convert his Bitcoin into other properties but claimed that he was not aware that it was illegal money.

Wen moved to the UK in 2007 and became a British citizen in 2018. 

Reportedly Zhang changed her name from Zhimin Qian, to hide identity. 

British prosecutors have charged a Chinese woman with money laundering, according to the FT. Zhang stole around £5bn from more than 128,000 Chinese investors through wealth management fraud between 2014 and 2017, before converting the money into Bitcoin and arriving in London in…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 30, 2024

It is expected that trial on this case will take place till March of this year and obviously, the final judgement of this case will include some suggestions to the policymakers for Bitcoin & crypto traders.

China & Crypto ban 

China’s government officially banned crypto-related activities from the country in 2021. 

Before 2021, China was a hub of cryptocurrencies, as the majority of the crypto mining operations were established in China but after the ban miners shifted their operations to other countries.

Despite the crypto ban, Chinese people are trading crypto assets with the help of Hong Kong-based offline stores. 

Read also: “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author says  Bitcoin (BTC) is a protection against money theft