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.
The mistaken release of an asylum seeker who was jailed for sexual offences has prompted widespread condemnation – and an extensive police operation.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, had assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, about a week after he had crossed the Channel and arrived in the UK by boat.
Last night, the teenager’s father was visibly upset as he turned up at HMP Chelmsford – asking for answers on how Kebatu was freed just one month into a 12-month sentence.
He did not want to speak on camera – but told Sky correspondent Mollie Malone that he was “frustrated” at the thought of the Ethiopian national being back on the streets.
“The justice system has let us down,” he said.
Footage has emerged that appears to show Kebatu in Chelmsford town centre following his release – dressed in prison clothes and clutching his belongings in a see-through bag.
He then headed to the railway station and boarded a train bound for London’s Liverpool Street, which departed at 12.41pm yesterday.
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Accidental release ‘damaging’ for government
‘You couldn’t make it up’
Kebatu’s case had a high profile and led to weeks of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying alongside other asylum seekers.
When he was sentenced last month, Judge Christopher Williams warned he posed a “significant risk of reoffending”.
The Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, Marie Goldman, told Sky presenter Barbara Serra she was “appalled, frustrated and angry about how this could possibly happen in the first place”.
She said it is clear something went “fundamentally wrong” at HMP Chelmsford – and her constituents are “fed up” with systems not working and underinvestment.
“It just destroys trust at a time when emotions are riding high. We’ve seen protests over the past few weeks and months, and there’s a lot of fear out there,” Ms Goldman added.
“It is so easy to lose trust and really hard to gain it – we need the government to get a grip on this.”
Protests were held at The Bell Hotel for several weeks
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described Kebatu as a “dangerous illegal immigrant” – and said his premature release shows “staggering incompetence”.
He told Sky News: “We also need an urgent apology from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Justice Secretary David Lammy who have presided over this fiasco.”
Mr Lammy, who also serves as deputy prime minister, has said he is “appalled” and “livid on behalf of the public that Kebatu is at large”.
He confirmed a full investigation is being launched, adding: “He should be deported back to Ethiopia after the sexual assaults that he’s committed.”
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Manhunt continues for Kebatu
Extensive policing operation under way
Multiple forces are now involved in the manhunt for Kebatu – including Essex Police, the British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police in London.
Policing commentator Graham Wettone told Sky presenter Gillian Joseph that detectives will be carefully piecing together his movements after walking free from HMP Chelmsford.
“All these forces will now be looking at the CCTV from the train itself – trying to locate him on the train and trying to identify at which stop he went off at, and where he went from that station,” he explained.
Mr Wettone said information from Essex Police’s initial investigation – including the contacts, friends and associates he had at the Bell Hotel – will also be a factor.
Questions will also be asked of the prison authorities: “Has he had any visits or phone calls? Has he got any friends or family in the country?”
He added that additional officers will have been allocated to the manhunt: “The Met will have some significant resources looking for him – maybe the Territorial Support Group or additional borough-based officers in and around Liverpool Street first of all.”
The British Transport Police could also be involved in further inquiries if Kebatu ended up travelling on the Underground.
“It really depends on where that thread goes – if they can locate where he got off, and then where he went to,” Mr Wettone said.
“This work is very, very fast-paced – there are detectives and intelligence officers working in the background, chasing up on leads and updating the teams on the ground.”
Experts are warning that without “fast changes” the UK could run out of drinking water in the future.
The first seven months of 2025 were the driest since 1976, with reservoirs across England only 56.1% full on average, according to the Environment Agency.
“I think that we do need to worry about the fact that there is this possibility we could run out,” Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology from Reading University, told Sky News.
“It’s only if we start thinking like that, that we’re going to start conserving our water, otherwise we just take it completely for granted.
“It is all of our fault, we have not been paying attention to what’s going on… we need some very fast changes to the way that we are using water and the way that we’re storing water in order to stop this being a problem in the future, because our summers are only going to get hotter.”
By 2050, the government says that England could face a shortfall of five billion litres of water every day.
‘Growing pressure’ on water system
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “This government recognises the growing pressure on our water system and is taking decisive action.
“We’re delivering over £104bn of private investment to fix leaking pipes, build nine new reservoirs and secure our water supply for the future.”
Latest figures suggest that around 2,690 megalitres of water is lost every day in England through leaks – the equivalent of 1,076 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
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‘We have invested an extra £10m’
“Leaks are a really important issue for us. We have invested an extra £10m just to deal with the weather that we’ve seen this summer,” said Dr Geoff Darch, head of strategic asset planning for Anglian Water.
Anglian Water is also hoping to build two new reservoirs in the East of England.
“We don’t want to stop people using water, it is absolutely essential for everything that we need it to do,” Dr Darch said.
“But I think we’ve got to a point now where we have to realise that water is a precious resource, it’s something that we all have to look after so that we have it for future generations and for the environment and with climate change and drought, we will need more reservoirs.”
The government claims it is fast-tracking new reservoirs to address the problem
Concerns about ‘whole system starting to collapse’
In August, the UK received just 62% of its average rainfall, according to the Met Office, which is leading a group of residents to monitor their water stocks closely.
“We collect all our own water from the rain, and so if we don’t have the rain that’s a significant issue,” explained Simon Tilly, director of the Hockerton eco housing project in Nottinghamshire.
He told Sky News they were working together to use less water.
“I suppose I’m most concerned about the whole system starting to collapse. There’s potential for longer droughts and us having a lot of water stress, there’s potential for a lot of floods when the drought finishes… and just generally that system going into random patterns where we’re getting more droughts and more floods,” he added.
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