$7.3B crypto laundering: ‘Bitcoin Queen’ sentenced to 11 Years in UK

A British court has sentenced Zhimin Qian, a Chinese national nicknamed the “Bitcoin Queen,” to 11 years and eight months in jail for laundering $7.3 billion from a crypto scam that defrauded about 128,000 victims in China. The Met Police described the seizure of £5.5 billion in cryptocurrency as the largest ever, tied to a seven-year investigation by the force’s Economic Crime team, which also linked the case to the laundering of fraud proceeds through Bitcoin.

The Met’s investigation notes that Qian entered the UK in 2018 after fleeing China with false documents, and she lured victims with daily dividends and guaranteed profits before converting proceeds into cryptocurrency. An accomplice, Jian Wen, assisted in moving a wallet holding 150 Bitcoin, and received a six-year, eight-month sentence; another suspect, Seng Hok Ling, was sentenced to four years and 11 months for transferring cryptocurrency.

In January a court ordered Qian to repay over £3.1 million or face extra prison time, and the case underscores the scale of illicit crypto laundering connected to the fraud.