Chinese woman convicted in UK after record £5bn bitcoin seizure

LONDON: A Chinese woman has been convicted in Britain following what authorities described as the world’s largest bitcoin seizure, after police uncovered 61,000 bitcoin worth more than £5 billion ($6.7 billion).

Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on Monday to illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency.

The 47-year-old had been evading justice for five years before her arrest, the Metropolitan Police said, adding that the conviction followed a seven-year probe into a global money laundering network.

Investigators said that Qian orchestrated a vast scam in China between 2014 and 2017, cheating more than 128,000 people before moving the stolen funds into bitcoin. She later fled China on false documents and entered the UK, where she attempted to launder the money by purchasing property, according to the BBC.

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Her accomplice, Jian Wen, a former restaurant worker in London, was jailed last year for laundering proceeds of the fraud. Wen, 44, moved from living above a takeaway to a multimillion-pound home and also purchased properties in Dubai worth more than £500,000. Police said they recovered more than £300 million worth of bitcoin from her.

Victims of the scheme – including business people, bank staff and members of the judiciary – reportedly invested “hundreds of thousands to tens of millions” of yuan after being persuaded by friends and family to trust Qian, who was known to some as the “goddess of wealth.”

Qian’s solicitor said her guilty plea aimed to reassure victims that enough funds were available to compensate them, given the rise in cryptocurrency values since the fraud. But reports suggest the UK government could seek to retain some of the seized assets.

Reforms to crime legislation under the previous Conservative government made it easier for UK authorities to freeze and recover crypto holdings, while allowing victims to apply for the release of assets held in accounts.

Qian remains in custody and will be sentenced after a separate trial of others linked to the case. UK Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the conviction sent a clear signal that Britain was not a “safe haven” for criminals.