This week, the UK court is set to pass judgment on a case that has set a record for the largest-scale Bitcoin money laundering in the UK. A 47-year-old Chinese woman, Qian Zhimin, is accused of converting a vast sum of illicit funds obtained from fraud in China into Bitcoin, totaling over $6 billion in value, and could potentially face a 14-year prison sentence.
According to Agence France-Presse, the 47-year-old Chinese woman, Qian Zhimin, also known as Zhang Yadi, deceived over 128,000 victims in China through fraud from 2014 to 2017 and converted the illegal proceeds into Bitcoin assets.
British authorities seized over 61,000 bitcoins during the operation, which, at current prices, are valued at over $6 billion. This case is considered the largest virtual currency money laundering case in UK history.
As disclosed by UK prosecutors and police, Qian Zhimin deceived over 128,000 investors between 2014 and 2017 through her company, “Lantian Ge Rui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.,” in China, promising high returns on investments. She then converted the illegal proceeds into Bitcoin and fled to the UK in 2018 with a fake passport, attempting to launder the tainted funds through investments and property transactions.
Qian Zhimin pleaded guilty to acquiring and holding criminal proceeds on September 29 and is expected to be sentenced after a hearing at Southwark Crown Court in London in the next two days.
She could face a maximum of 14 years in prison.
Qian Zhimin once proclaimed herself as the “mother of financial management” in China. Her company, Lantian Ge Rui, attracted public deposits nationwide with slogans like “Give Ge Rui three years, and Ge Rui will give you wealth for three lifetimes,” promising returns of 1 to 3 times the amount invested. In reality, it was a typical Ponzi scheme that lured investors through false means like fake Bitcoin mining sites and bogus investment projects.
According to a report from “China News Weekly,” the case involved around 61,000 bitcoins, equivalent to approximately 49.35 billion yuan at market prices. After the case came to light, Qian Zhimin fled China in July 2017 and arrived in the UK in September of the same year using the alias “Zhang Yadi.”
During her time in the UK, she enlisted the help of a Chinese woman named Wen Jian to launder money. Wen Jian was arrested in 2021 and sentenced in 2023 for money laundering. Qian Zhimin remained fugitive until she was apprehended in the UK in April 2024.
According to lawyer Liu Yang from Beijing Dewin Law Firm, Qian Zhimin’s Bitcoin money laundering scheme was not complex. Qian Zhimin fled to the UK in September 2017, before which Chinese virtual currency exchanges had not closed the exchange channels between RMB and virtual currencies. This allowed Qian Zhimin to directly purchase Bitcoin on trading platforms with the illicit funds before fleeing overseas.
Agence France-Presse reported that the proposed compensation mechanism by UK authorities is currently under discussion in civil proceedings at the High Court in London.
Approximately 1,300 self-proclaimed victims have reportedly come forward seeking compensation.