Living in a mansion with a monthly rent of 155,000 yuan, she travels around in luxury cars or spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-end shopping malls, with jewelry all over the place, and even buys several villas at a time...
From the description alone, it is hard to imagine that this is the life of an ordinary British takeaway worker, but all this really happened to a Chinese woman named Wen Jian. Without thinking too much, you know that something must be wrong when things are out of the ordinary, so the police naturally targeted her.
On March 18, a British court found 42-year-old Wen Jian guilty of money laundering and sentenced him on May 10. During the investigation, the police seized more than 61,000 bitcoins, currently worth about 3.4 billion pounds, the largest amount of cryptocurrency ever seized. The total amount involved in the case reached a staggering 6.3 billion US dollars, making it the world's largest money laundering case.
Similar to all stories of people who become rich overnight but then get their wings broken in mid-air, Wen Jian also met what she called her "noble man" in life. If it weren't for the British police's investigation, Wen Jian might have continued to live in the dream of getting rich overnight and being grateful to her benefactor for the rest of her life, but unfortunately, in the end, she was imprisoned and her benefactor disappeared. Little did she know that this farce of "a domineering president falling in love with me" was actually related to a major case in my country seven years ago - the 43 billion yuan illegal fundraising case of Lantian Ge Rui.
This case within a case involving 61,000 bitcoins has become even more confusing.
01 Case: A delivery man suddenly became rich after meeting a "noble man"
Wen Jian is not different from ordinary people in terms of her life experience. She even lived a very poor life. Born in 1982, she grew up in a working-class family in China. She met her husband Marcus Barraclough later. In 2007, Wen Jian became pregnant and came to the UK on a spouse visa.
But the family of three soon fell apart. Soon after her son was born, Wen Jian divorced her husband and became a single mother, living a tight life. Wen Jian did not give up on herself. Even though life was difficult, she obtained a bachelor's degree in law and economics in Leeds. In 2017, Wen Jian moved to London. In order to support her family, she lived in the basement of a Chinese takeaway restaurant in Abbeywood, southeast London, and worked as a deliveryman for the restaurant, earning 5,979 pounds (about 54,000 yuan) a year, which was a drop in the bucket for a single mother in the UK. In order to ease the financial pressure, Wen Jian worked odd jobs everywhere and held several positions. Perhaps because of her relatively high level of knowledge, during this period, she also came into contact with some temporary work needs for cryptocurrencies.
The beginning of changing his fate was a job posting. Wen Jian accidentally saw a job posting on WeChat. A woman who claimed to be engaged in international trade of diamonds and antiques wanted to find a "housekeeper" with a very generous salary. Without much hesitation, Wen Jian contacted the mysterious recruiter.
This connection also allowed Wen Jian’s future “noble man” in life, Qian Zhimin (alias Zhang Yadi), to officially surface.
At the five-star Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, the two had a pleasant conversation, and Qian Zhimin soon hired Wen Jian as her full-time caregiver and housekeeper, with a monthly salary of 30,000 yuan, including a million-dollar bonus. Perhaps to show his generosity and trust, Qian Zhimin paid Wen Jian 40,000 pounds on the day of the meeting. In this way, Wen Jian moved from the basement to a mansion in Hampstead with a monthly rent of more than 150,000 yuan, and began her counterattack life.
Her job is simple: first, she opens a cryptocurrency account to conduct transactions and cash out, and second, she spends money for her employer.
According to Wen Jian, Qian Zhimin, who had suffered a car accident before, had difficulty walking, heavy breathing, and was very weak. He stayed in bed for more than 20 hours a day and often had nightmares. After waking up, he used his laptop to play games, shop, and sell Bitcoin.
Afterwards, the two disguised themselves as jewelry dealers, traveled around Europe under pseudonyms, exchanged the cashed-in Bitcoin for high-end jewelry, and once spent millions on watches at Van Cleef & Arpels. Various funds were continuously transferred to Qian Zhimin through Wen Jian's account in various forms, and Qian Zhimin also fulfilled his promise, and Wen Jian got the affluent life he had always dreamed of. Wen Jian's son was sent to Heathside Preparatory School next to the mansion, with tuition fees reaching 6,000 pounds per semester. Wen Jian also bought a Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan worth 25,000 pounds and became a distinguished VIP of the top luxury department store Harrods. In just three months, she bought more than 90,000 pounds (about 810,000 yuan) of brand-name clothing, jewelry and shoes at Harrods.
In addition to jewelry and daily expenses, real estate is also a top priority for spending money. In Dubai, Wen Jian spent 500,000 pounds to buy an apartment; in Italy, she bid for an antique Venice sea view villa worth 10 million pounds, and then Wen Jian bought a property worth 4.5 million pounds in London.
In 2018, when she tried to buy a seven-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool in Hampstead for 23.5 million pounds (about 200 million yuan) and a nearby mansion worth 12.5 million pounds (about 100 million yuan), the huge real estate consumption attracted the attention of regulators. According to current UK requirements, regulators required Wen Jian to provide proof of the legality of the funds to prove that there was no violation of anti-money laundering regulations, but Wen Jian obviously could not provide it, and the transaction was finally cancelled, which also aroused suspicion among the police.
02 Case transfer: Police shattered their dream, 61,000 bitcoins surfaced
In the early morning of October 31, 2018, the police entered the homes of Wen Jian and Qian Zhimin with a search warrant, seized 69,000 pounds in cash, and obtained a laptop, tablet, a pink USB flash drive and private key password stored in a metal can. The next day, the police found electronic equipment in the safe again. But at that time, it was not known whether it was due to insufficient evidence, the police did not detain the two, but returned their passports six months later.
After nearly two years of investigation, in 2020, the police once again searched the couple's mansion. Just one month after this search, Qian Zhimin, sensing danger, disappeared from the UK.
In 2021, after three years of unlocking, the British police finally confirmed that there were more than 61,000 bitcoins in the electronic devices, which was one of the largest amounts of bitcoins ever seized by British law enforcement. According to the price at the time, this batch of bitcoins was worth up to 1.4 billion pounds (about 12.7 billion yuan), and now it is worth more than 3.4 billion pounds (about 31 billion yuan).
In May 2021, Wen Jian was formally arrested. Unexpectedly, during the interrogation, Wen Jian stated that she had no idea where the funds were from and was only following instructions. She initially claimed that the cryptocurrency was legally earned from mining, and later claimed that it was a "love gift" from Qian Zhimin, emphasizing that Qian Zhimin was just a wealthy businessman who made his fortune through jewelry business, real estate investment, and legal Bitcoin mining. In other words, she was just a scapegoat who was an innocent victim.
In this context, when Wen Jian was first tried in 2023, he could not be convicted of 2 of the 12 charges and was found not guilty of 10. However, subsequent investigations revealed that he had a certain criminal intent in one of the three wallets containing the stolen money, so he was eventually convicted of money laundering in a trial in March. Due to the large amount of money, he was classified as a high-risk Class A criminal and will be sentenced in May this year.
The dream eventually turned into tears behind bars. Although it is sad, Wen Jian's story basically ended here, but Qian Zhimin's story has not yet come to an end.
Where did the tens of billions of RMB involved in the case come from? How could an ordinary middle-aged woman bring such a huge sum of money to the UK? All of this is related to an old case from seven years ago.
03 Case closed: 7-year-old illegal fund-raising case re-introduced, mysterious woman absconded again
In March 2014, Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 30 million yuan. Its business scope includes electronic circuit design and development, electronic product research and development, etc. The company seems to be normal, but it is engaged in pyramid selling under the guise of technology, claiming to have a sideline business of Bitcoin mining, and deceiving investors with high returns.
Specifically, the company used "high returns", "guaranteed profits", "three generations of wealth" as bait to launch a number of so-called "short-term investment and financial management" products, with product terms ranging from six months to 30 months, investment starting points ranging from 6,000 to 60,000, and annualized returns of 100%-300%. In terms of publicity, Lantian Green quickly established more than 30 branches across the country through a pyramid scheme of developing downlines layer by layer, and the victims were mainly elderly people.
On August 17, 2016, the Linghai Public Security Bureau organized police forces to bring back more than 20 people suspected of illegal pyramid selling activities in a business hotel in the city for investigation. Later, it was found that more than 20 people were employees of Blue Sky Green. The police realized that the situation was not simple. During the investigation, they believed that the company's actions were suspected of illegally absorbing public deposits, and immediately detained Wu Xiaolong, the then general manager. Later, Blue Sky Green bribed the members of the investigation team with 15 million yuan to get Wu Xiaolong released on bail, which once caused widespread heated discussion.
In 2017, the Blue Sky Green product exploded, and the police officially filed a case. In 2019, 50 people at all levels of Blue Sky Green were arrested, including the legal representative, general manager and other persons involved in the case. It was not until December 2022 that Blue Sky Green began to slowly refund the money. It was disclosed that the case obtained illegal amounts of up to 43 billion yuan from more than 128,000 investors.
The actual operator behind this organization is Qian Zhimin (also known as "Huahua"). But she was almost invisible throughout the case. Judging from the company's registrant, she had planned it long ago. From the beginning of the company's establishment, she hired Ren Jiangtao as the legal representative with a monthly salary of RMB 26,948 and a one-time bonus of RMB 997,000. At the same time, she asked him to open a Huobi account and claimed that she would settle all legal issues.
But the fact is that as soon as Ren Jiangtao was investigated by the police, Qian Zhimin immediately transferred the Bitcoin and began her escape as a wanted criminal. Judging from the direction of her escape, Qian Zhimin was meticulous. She used the Myanmar passport she had previously purchased in the name of NAN YIN, and then obtained another passport from St. Kitts and Nevis by pretending to be Zhang Yadi. In this way, she fled all the way from Myanmar to the UK and came to London in 2017.
It is reported that Qian Zhimin recorded her escape plan in detail in her personal notebook. She first bought the private country of Liberland, and then built the largest Buddhist temple in Europe to ask religious leaders to anoint her as the reincarnated goddess and the Queen of Liberland, thereby obtaining diplomatic immunity. She cheated billions and wanted to be a goddess. The whole plan can be called quite arrogant.
Since she had not yet mastered the English skill tree and was in poor health, she decided to first look for a middleman in London who could work with her to handle the stolen money. It was at this time that Wen Jian came into her sight. Being in a foreign country, helpless, and short of money meant that he was easy to control, and this was probably why Qian Zhimin chose Wen Jian. As expected, Wen Jian acted almost in the same way as Ren Jiangtao, and inadvertently became an accomplice under various temptations.
Even in his daily interactions with Wen Jian, Qian Zhimin did not let down his guard. None of the countries they traveled to had extradition rights granted to China, and Qian Zhimin never appeared in photos to prevent his whereabouts from being exposed. His anti-reconnaissance awareness was first-rate. This was not surprising, as Qian Zhimin could quickly disappear whenever something went wrong. His whereabouts are still unknown. As of now, Qian Zhimin has been included in Interpol's Red Notice list.
04 The case remains: Did the huge sum of money end up in someone else's hands?
Looking at the whole thing, although it is infuriating that the mastermind is at large, what is more concerned is the distribution of the seized stolen money. Judging from the source, this huge sum of 3.4 billion pounds was undoubtedly defrauded from Chinese people, but based on the current situation, it is more likely to fall into the hands of the UK.
At present, the British Crown Prosecution Service has filed a civil recovery procedure with the High Court to determine whether there are other legal claimants. If no one claims the recovery, the amount will be confiscated in full, half of which will be assigned to the British police and the other half to the British Home Office.
However, cross-border recovery is inherently difficult, and the possibility of individual claims is minimal. Even if the Chinese government, judicial organs and police are involved, the difficulty is still high. According to past rules, there are very few successful cross-border cases of snatching food from the tiger's mouth. Especially when it comes to virtual currency, there are deficiencies in the identification of ownership, value assessment and technical means. Even in China, there is no more comprehensive method of handling it. Therefore, although the division of stolen money is an internationally accepted practice, even if China and the UK enter into diplomatic coordination this time, the return of domestic assets is not optimistic. According to Caixin, judging from the current progress of the Blue Sky Grey case, it is expected that less than 5% of domestic funds can be returned.
The only way to turn things around is to catch Qian Zhimin. In this case, China can also gain more benefits when China and the UK, as members of FATF, cooperate in recovering the stolen money. But from an ethical point of view, regardless of the difficulty, for the UK, it may be easier to deal with Qian Zhimin if he is not caught. After all, assets as high as 31 billion are a huge sum of money even for a country.
For the parties involved, it is all in vain. No matter how smart they are, most of the money they have defrauded will eventually go to other people. I wonder what Qian Zhimin, who is still on the run with his broken body and most likely will not have a good end, thinks, whether he is on the way to find the next scapegoat, and who should the 130,000 people who were deceived vent their anger on?
For Wen Jian, who was thrown into prison, fate dealt him a heavy blow and made him lose his vigilance in greed and desire. It seems unnecessary to discuss whether he was completely unaware of the source of Qian Zhimin's huge wealth or preferred not to know.
But while sighing, we also need to be wary of becoming the next Wen Jian. After all, the temptation of getting rich quickly is hard to resist, but behind sudden wealth for no reason may be a prison sentence paved with chains and blood.
