Zhimin Qian, a 47‑year‑old Chinese citizen who also goes by Yadi Zhang, received an 11‑year‑8‑month prison term at London’s Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of money‑laundering and holding illicit assets.
The sentence came in the wake of what British authorities say is the nation’s largest cryptocurrency confiscation: roughly 61,000 bitcoins were seized, worth more than £5.5 billion at the time of the September conviction and still valued at about £5 billion today.From 2014 to 2017 Qian ran a massive Ponzi operation through her company Lantian Gerui, defrauding more than 128,000 investors in China.
When Chinese regulators closed in, she fled to the United Kingdom in September 2017 under a false name and began living a lavish lifestyle—renting a Hampstead flat for £17,333 a month, traveling across Europe, and converting bitcoin into cash, jewellery and real estate.
The UK investigation began after Qian attempted to purchase a £12.5 million property in London in 2018, prompting suspicion about the source of her wealth. She recruited Jian Wen to help her settle in London and Malaysian national Seng Hok Ling to move the illicit proceeds. Ling claimed he was unaware of Qian’s full criminal activities, referring to her as the “boss lady”.
A chain of bitcoin transactions eventually led police to a hideout in York, where they arrested Qian in April 2024 and recovered several devices, including a laptop containing millions of pounds in bitcoin.Ling was sentenced to four years and eleven months for handling criminal property.
The case underscores the growing difficulty law‑enforcement faces in tracing and confiscating digital assets tied to cross‑border financial crime, and it may set a precedent for future UK crypto‑related prosecutions.
