How Chinese takeaway worker led police to Bitcoin worth £3bn in Britain’s biggest ever cryptocurrency seizure
Within weeks of Yadi Zhang’s arrival in London in September 2017, Jian Wen had left her job and room in a Chinese takeaway and moved into a £5m six-bedroom house near Hampstead Heath.
The women, who claimed to run an international jewellery business trading in diamonds and antiques in countries including Japan, Thailand and China, travelled the world and spent tens of thousands of pounds on designer clothes and shoes in Harrods.
In her newly affluent lifestyle, Wen bought a £25,000 E-Class Mercedes and sent her son to the £6,000-a-term Heathside preparatory school.
But alarm bells rang when she tried to buy some of London’s most expensive properties, including a £23.5m seven-bedroom Hampstead mansion with a swimming pool and a nearby £12.5m home with a cinema and gym.
Wen, who had declared income of just £5,979 in the 2016/17 financial year, could not explain the source of the Bitcoin she would use to pay for the properties and police first raided the women’s home on 31 October 2018.
Jian Wen stood trial at Southwark Crown Court. Pic: CPS
But it would be another two-and-a-half years before investigators realised they had made the UK’s biggest-ever cryptocurrency seizure when more than 61,000 Bitcoin were discovered in digital wallets.
The cryptocurrency was worth £1.4bn at the time but its value has now risen to more than £3bn, while 23,308 Bitcoin, now worth more than £1bn, linked to the investigation remains in circulation.
The £5bn investment fraud
The Bitcoin came from a £5bn investment scam carried out in China by Zhang, 45, who arrived in the UK on a false St Kitts and Nevis passport after conning nearly 130,000 Chinese investors in fraudulent wealth schemes between 2014 and 2017, a court heard.
Wen was not alleged to have been involved in the underlying fraud.
Zhang, who is also known as Zhimin Qian (which means money in Chinese) has fled the UK and her whereabouts are unknown.
Wen, 42, has been found guilty of one count of money laundering between October 2017 and January 2022 and the jury failed to reach verdicts on two similar counts following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.
Prosecutors are not seeking a retrial and Wen will be sentenced on 10 May.
The women rented a £17,000-a-month house in Hampstead. Pic: CPS
She was acquitted of 10 other money laundering charges at a trial last year, which could not be reported over fears hackers could target the firm holding the seized cryptocurrency if the figures involved were made public.
As a Category A prisoner, Wen, a small woman wearing large round glasses, was led to the witness box in handcuffs, while two dock officers guarded the door as she gave evidence.
She told jurors she grew up in a working-class family in China, where she met her husband Marcus Barraclough before coming to the UK while heavily pregnant on a spousal visa in 2007.
Wen visits the Lindt chocolate shop in Switzerland. Pic: Met Police
Wen’s lifestyle change
The relationship broke down following the birth of their son and she lived a modest lifestyle in Leeds, where she took a law diploma and completed a BA in economics before moving to London in the summer of 2017.
She had already opened cryptocurrency accounts, making meticulous notes in her Wallace and Gromit notebook, but said she had “no idea” she would soon be dealing with Bitcoin on such a “massive scale”.
She applied for dozens of jobs while working in a Chinese takeaway in Abbey Wood, southeast London, where she lived in a room below the restaurant.
Wen said she saw an advert on Chinese social media app WeChat for a “butler” and first met Zhang at the five-star Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. She later described her role as “live-in PA for a high net worth individual” on her CV.
The women soon moved into a £17,000-a-month Hampstead home after paying a £40,000 deposit and six months’ rent in advance.
Wen took trips to Thailand and Dubai and the women travelled extensively throughout Europe, with Zhang – who used aliases including Rose, Emma, and Hua Hua – avoiding countries with Chinese extradition agreements.
Wen tried to buy Hampstead property. Pic: Met Police
Hampstead mansions and a Tuscan villa
They sold Bitcoin and bought fine jewellery, with receipts found for £25,600 and £18,750 from Christopher Walser Vintage Diamonds, in Zurich, and two watches worth around £49,300 and £69,900 from Van Cleef & Arpels in Switzerland.
Over a three-month period at the end of 2017, more than £90,000 was spent in Harrods on designer women’s clothes, jewellery and shoes using a rewards card in Wen’s name, although she told jurors: “I was the one carrying the bags.”
Wen bought two apartments in Dubai for more than £500,000 and looked into buying a £10m 18th century Tuscan villa with a sea view.
Wen on a trip to Germany. Pic: Met Police
Bundles of cash found in police raids. Pic: CPS
But efforts to buy multimillion-pound properties in London triggered anti-money laundering checks and none of the purchases went ahead because the source of the Bitcoin could not be explained.
Wen initially claimed the cryptocurrency had been mined, then said it was given to her as a “love present”, drawing up a deed of gift stating she had been given 3,000 bitcoin, then worth £15m, by Zhang.
Prosecutors said Wen acted as a “front person” to help disguise the source of the stolen money, which had been used to buy cryptocurrency to remove the proceeds from China.
‘I was duped’
Gillian Jones KC said when Zhang landed in London she needed to convert the Bitcoin back into cash or “property, jewellery or other high-value items”.
Wen accepted she was involved in an arrangement dealing with some of the cryptocurrency but said she did not know or suspect it was from the proceeds of crime, claiming she was “duped” by the woman she called her boss.
“We were close… but looking back now, I was badly used,” she said. “I have no idea where she is.”
Police say they are still actively looking for Zhang.
All flights were halted at Edinburgh Airport this morning due to an IT issue affecting its air traffic control provider.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the airport later announced service had resumed.
Its post read: “Flights have now resumed following the IT issue with our air traffic provider.
“We thank passengers for their patience and understanding.”
But passengers continue to feel the effects.
A Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Edinburgh was diverted to Dublin after going into a holding pattern over the Scottish capital.
And a live arrivals board on the airport’s website showed multiple flights diverted, delayed and cancelled.
Arrivals board at Edinburgh Airport. Pic: Edinburgh Airport
Morven McCall and Cody Stevenson, both 19, were due to fly easyJet from Edinburgh to Amsterdam on their first trip away together.
Morven told Sky News: “We literally just got into the airport and as soon as we walked through the door there was an announcement that it had been cancelled.
“I was ill over the summer and had to cancel two holidays already, this was our first time going away together. We are just gutted and stressed.”
Follow live: Latest updates as flights halted
Arrivals at Edinburgh Airport. File pic: PA
One passenger was on a plane when they found out.
They said: “We boarded our flight and pushed back on time for an 8.45 (am) departure, then sat for a while before the pilot told us what was happening.
“He updated us a couple of times, cabin crew are brilliant at handing out water etc, and I’m surprised that everyone appears to be upbeat. But then you do wonder how long for, just been told we’re hoping to be in the air in 20 minutes.”
Another passenger told us: “The first news was from the airport announcement as we were halfway through boarding, saying the airfield was closed due to air traffic control down.
“No one knew what was going on. We’d already been delayed a bit before boarding, with no reason. I suspect problems started about 9am.”
It comes after an earlier announcement that all flights had been halted.
“No flights are currently operating from Edinburgh Airport,” the previous statement said.
“Teams are working on the issue and will resolve as soon as possible.”
There was no timeframe for recovery initially, Sky News learned.
It’s understood by PA that the issue was not linked to today’s Cloudflare outage.
Edinburgh Trams also posted on X, writing: “If you’re travelling with us to @EDI_Airport this morning, please be aware that flights are not currently operating.”
The airport urged passengers to contact their airline for the latest information on flights.
An average of 43,000 passengers per day use the airport, which is served by 37 airlines flying to 155 destinations.
A former doctor has been charged over alleged sexual assaults on 38 patients in his care.
Nathaniel Spencer, 38, has been charged with 15 counts of sexual assault, 17 counts of assault by penetration, nine counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, three counts of assault a child under 13 by penetration and one count of attempted assault by penetration.
It follows a police investigation into alleged sexual offences between 2017 and 2021.
Staffordshire Police said in a statement the charges come after a complex investigation by the Public Protection Unit into sexual offences at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, in Stoke-on-Trent, and Russells Hall Hospital, in Dudley.
North Staffordshire Justice Centre
Ben Samples, deputy chief crown prosecutor for the West Midlands CPS Complex Casework Unit and Serious Violence, Organised Crime and Exploitation Unit, said: “We have decided to prosecute Nathaniel Spencer for a number of serious sexual offences allegedly carried out against patients while he was working as a doctor – including assault by penetration and sexual assault against a child.
“Our prosecutors have worked at length to support a detailed and complex investigation by Staffordshire Police, carefully reviewing the available evidence to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.”
Spencer, from Birmingham, will appear at North Staffordshire Justice Centre on 20 January 2026.
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