A Chinese woman has been convicted in the UK after police described the seizure of her cryptocurrency holdings as the largest in the world, totaling over £5.5 billion.
Zhimin Qian, 47, who also goes by Yadi Zhang, admitted at Southwark Crown Court on Monday to illegally acquiring and holding massive amounts of bitcoin.
According to the Metropolitan Police, Qian ran a huge scam in China between 2014 and 2017, defrauding more than 128,000 people. “She orchestrated a large-scale fraud in China and converted the illicit gains into bitcoin,” police said. At least 61,000 bitcoins linked to Qian have now been seized.
Qian fled China in September 2018 using false documents and arrived in the UK, where she allegedly tried to launder her stolen funds by purchasing property with the help of an accomplice, Jian Wen.
The case concludes a seven-year international investigation into Qian’s money laundering network. Detective Sergeant Isabella Grotto, who led the investigation, said:
“Today marks the result of years of painstaking work. When we located Zhimin Qian, she had been evading justice for five years. Her arrest set off a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions and thousands of documents.”
Will Lyne, Head of the Met’s Economic and Cybercrime Command, described the case as “one of the largest money laundering investigations in UK history and among the highest-value cryptocurrency cases globally.”
Jian Wen, 44, a Chinese takeaway worker, helped Qian launder the stolen funds. The Crown Prosecution Service said Wen moved into a multi-million-pound rented house in north London, having previously lived above a restaurant. Last year, she was sentenced to six years and eight months for her role in the scheme. Authorities also traced suspiciously expensive purchases, including two Dubai properties worth over £500,000 and more than £300 million in bitcoin.
Met Police confirmed that Qian remains in custody, awaiting sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled. Photo by Jorge Franganillo, Wikimedia commons.
