The National Crime Agency has exposed the growing influence of Chinese gangsters by warning that they are now the most dangerous foreign criminals who are active in Britain.
The NCA reveals in a new report that gangsters from the country are currently the largest foreign organized crime threat for the UK, a conclusion that even experts have surprised them.
Chinese criminals play an important role about a huge strip of the British criminal underworld, including drug smuggling, human trafficking, modern slavery, fraud and cyber crime – the agency warns in its national strategic assessment of 2025.
They also pointed to the 'increasing' influence of Chinese money laundering, which are widely used by British crooks after improving their skills to help fellow countrymen to avoid China's strict currency checks to move money to the UK illegally.
They include 'Bitcoin Queen' Jian Wen, 42, a one -off London pick -up employee who earned £ 5,979 per year, who was found in possession of £ 3 billion in crypto from an investment scourge that was carried out in China between 2014 and 2017.
Another rare insight into this shadow world came up with the imprisonment of a seven-member gang that £ 55 million white white as part of a 'Shadow Banking' network, specifically aimed at international university students.
Professor Anthony Glees, an expert in the field of safety and intelligence of the University of Buckingham, told MailOnline that he was 'surprised' by the finding of the NCA that Chinese gangs now represent the greatest overseas overseas crime threat of the UK.
'Bitcoin Queen' Jian Wen, 42, a one -off London take -away employee who earned £ 5,979 a year, was found in possession of £ 3 billion in crypto
Wen lived in a basement room under a Chinese collection meals in Abbey Wood, Southeast London. But within a few weeks this fantastic house lived with six bedrooms in Hampstead Heath
Piles of cash were found by the police who are investigating Wen. She's a sentence of seven years
“What it shows is that the experts who are paid to go into detailed details in these kinds of things, understanding the danger that they are,” he said.
'Many people would have thought that enemy number one was Russia, but for the people who look in the corners and holes, it's the Chinese. That is their assessment and it is very alarming. '
Asked to explain the ability of Chinese gangsters to infiltrate the underworld of Great Britain, Professor Gleden claimed that they were benefiting from a tolerant environment that was promoted by President Xi's regime.
“The Chinese government will not mind – they want us to be weakened and poorer,” he said.
In his report, the NCA said that it was 'very likely' that Chinese criminals located in China or other countries, including the UK, ''Suppose the largest non-British serious organized crime threat for the UK '.
The agency warned that the 'already high threat of Chinese -speaking money laundering networks in the UK' grew.
Explaining their ability to successfully compete against rival laundries from other hostile states such as Russia, noticed that Chinese groups had become known for their 'competitive and fast service'.
This seven-headed Chinese gang is laundered £ 55 million as part of a 'Shadow Banking' network, specifically aimed at international university students
Large bundles of cash were found during several police search assignments to their head office
The seven gang members received a total of 24 years and 11 months behind bars
Their growth has been helped by rules that forbid citizens to send more than $ 50,000 (£ 38,000) from China for personal purposes every year.
While citizens are intended to send all transactions via a foreign exchange account that is open with a registered bank, many people circumvent this limit by 'Underground Banking'.
The ability of these criminals to secretly move money across borders has been seized by British street gangs, who use it to hide the origin of funds of drug trafficking.
High Street stores, including cash heavy companies such as restaurants, collection restaurants and nail salons, have long been popular with criminal networks that wanted to clean dirty cash.
In one operation that was recently exposed in Ireland, Chinese criminals used an Asian restaurant in Dublin as a drop-off point where Irish gangsters could leave their money to wash through bank accounts or the purchase of luxury goods.
The enormous profit that is offered are inevitably the most important attraction for potential washing waxers, which are often able to enjoy a lush lifestyle by taking a committee about all the money that goes through their hands.
Red Paint finished this week at a house on Chingford Road in Walthamstow, North Londs in an attack linked to Chinese gangs
The word 'brothel' grabbed the corner of a house in Walthamstow. An expert suggested that the attacks were meant to intimidate gang rivals or people in debt to borrow sharks
In the case of Jian Wen, this included moving to a £ 5 million Hampstead Mansion with six bedrooms-for which they spent £ 17,000 a month on rent-with one £ 25,000 e-class Mercedes and £ 30,000 a month on Harrods.
She also sent her son to £ 6,000-per-term Heathside Prep School and enjoyed lush holidays to Germany, Rome, Zurich, Norway, Thailand, China and Japan, where she saw the sights under the guise of jewelry companies who act in diamonds and antiques.
The single mother earned her fortune by washing dirt for Yadi Zhang, also known as Zhimin Qian, who fled to the UK in 2017 after ripping off 128,000 investors in China.
It was only when she tried to acquire a £ 23 million London house, that alarm bells called in the UK when she had not passed the money residence checks. She is currently in prison and is a prison sentence of six years.
Unlike cyber criminals from Russia or drug peddlers from Albania, Chinese gangs who are active in Great Britain rarely have the headlines.
A recent wave of attacks on houses that use red paint is an exception in which the bizarre crimewave was originally thought as part of a coordinated protest before the finger was focused on Chinese criminals.
The Met is still looking for suspected members of a female blackmail -gang that focused on Chinese speakers in North London
The women are accused of telling people that they are 'injured' in the near future if they have not absorbed large amounts of cash and handed it to them
This 'refined' cannabis farm run by Chinese and West Balkan organized criminals was discovered by the police in Ballymena, North -Ireland
Properties throughout England have been destroyed and sprayed with the word 'brothel' during more than a dozen mysterious nocturnal attacks in the last year and a half.
Oliver Chan, university teacher Criminology at the University of Birmingham, later suggested that the attacks were carried out by gangsters trying to intimidate rivals with brothels or people who have debts to borrow sharks.
An area that has received a lot of attention is the role of companies based in China in the production of small boat engines used by cross-channel smugglers.
Foreign secretary David Lammy promised to focus on the responsible companies as part of a new 'World First' sanction regime that was announced earlier this year.
Sturdier, rigid -dressed ships with the right engines are almost completely phased out by human smugglers in favor of larger, Flimsier Ambacht with one small outboard motor.
The issue is of such worries that it was a subject of conversation with Chinese officials on organized Immigration Crime Summit this week in London, MailOnline understands.
Shoppers browse through an electronics market in Shenzhen, where a large market for second -hand phones is stolen by organized gangs in the UK
Countless stolen phones were followed to Huaqiang South Road in Shenzhen, known as 'Silicon Valley' in China
But the flow of illegal goods also goes in the other direction, with organized criminals who use the enormous Chinese market to remove stolen goods.
These include mobile phones, which are swept by gangs at street level in the UK and in large numbers are sent to warehouses in South China, where they are subdivided into parts, put together and sold to the local population against knock-down prices.
Shenzhen is located in the south of China next to the border with Hong Kong. Known as 'Silicon Valley' of the country because of his expertise in electronics, it is also the home of large stores that sell used consumer goods.
Many stolen telephones were followed to Huaqiang South Road, a route surrounded by warehouses with a dock on one side.
It is a further reminder of the increasingly globalized nature of the organized criminal networks that, like large legitimate companies, will work everywhere where money can be made.
