LONDON, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese woman who defrauded thousands of investors in China, converted the proceeds into cryptocurrency, and fled to Britain has been sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison by a London court.
Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, 47, pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing and transferring criminal property, namely cryptocurrency, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stated on Tuesday.
Between 2014 and 2017, Qian led a large-scale investment fraud in China that deceived more than 128,000 victims and caused losses of around 600 million pounds (around 786 million U.S. dollars). She later converted more than 20 million pounds of the proceeds into bitcoin before leaving China.
After the fraud came under investigation by Chinese authorities, Qian fled the country in 2017, travelling through Myanmar and Thailand using false identities before arriving in Britain. According to prosecutors, she attempted to build a new life under fake names, renting a luxury property in Hampstead, north London, and spending large amounts on designer goods.
Her attempts to purchase high-value real estate, including properties worth up to 23 million pounds, raised suspicion and triggered a Metropolitan Police investigation. Officers later seized about 61,000 bitcoin from electronic devices in Qian's possession, marking the largest cryptocurrency seizure in British history.
The CPS said the bitcoin, initially worth around 300 million pounds when seized in 2018, is now valued at nearly 5 billion pounds. The agency is pursuing confiscation and civil proceedings to prevent Qian and her accomplices from accessing the funds.
Qian's Malaysian associate, Seng Hok Ling, also 47, was sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison for assisting her in transferring about 2.5 million pounds. Both were arrested in York in April 2024, following a long-running surveillance operation.
Neil Colville, head prosecutor at the CPS Serious Economic Organized Crime and International Directorate, said the case "illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to fraudsters and the growing use of cryptocurrencies to disguise and transfer assets."
Will Lyne, head of the Metropolitan Police's Economic and Cybercrime Command, said the outcome marked the conclusion of "one of the largest and most complex economic crime investigations ever undertaken by the Met," involving "unprecedented cooperation with Chinese law enforcement."
"The message is clear," Lyne said. "Criminal assets are not safe in the UK." (1 pound = 1.31 U.S. dollars)
