Chinese National Sentenced for Laundering Over £5 Billion from 128,000 Victims

According to the Metropolitan Police, Zhimin Qian, 47, was jailed for 11 years and eight months for possessing and transferring criminal property in the form of cryptocurrency, while her associate Seng Hok Ling, 47, received four years and eleven months for similar offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Between 2014 and 2017, Qian orchestrated a large-scale fraud in China that defrauded over 128,000 victims of substantial sums, and she later fled to the United Kingdom under an assumed identity after converting some proceeds into cash, jewellery and Bitcoin. The investigation, described as one of law enforcement’s most complex, recovered over 61,000 Bitcoin, confirmed as the world’s most significant cryptocurrency seizure.

The case highlights how cryptocurrency transactions can leave digital traces and be used to disguise and transfer assets by organised crime, with asset recovery proceedings continuing to seize criminal assets valued at around £4.8 billion. The sentencing marks the start, not the end, of asset recovery efforts, and authorities urge victims to report incidents to Action Fraud to aid collective defence against such frauds.