30.09.2025
2 min
540
A 47-year-old Chinese national, Zhimin Qian, has pleaded guilty to money laundering after London police seized 61,000 bitcoins worth more than £5.5bn – the largest cryptocurrency seizure in UK and global history.
The seven-year investigation found that Qian ran a massive fraud scheme in China between 2014 and 2017, defrauding more than 128,000 people. She converted the ill-gotten funds into bitcoin and then tried to launder them by buying property in the UK.
Her accomplice, Jian Wen, was involved in the scheme and helped to buy the property. In 2024, she was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for her role in the crime.
Prosecutors say cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used by organised crime to hide the origin of assets. This case demonstrates the scale of the profits that fraudsters are trying to legalise using digital currencies.
The investigation began in 2018 after a tip-off about the movement of large criminal assets. Thanks to the cooperation of the London police with Chinese law enforcement officers, it was possible to obtain evidence of fraudulent activity. Hundreds of documents and crypto wallets were carefully checked, which allowed to expose Qian’s attempts to avoid responsibility by using forged documents.
Investigators call this case one of the most complex in the field of money laundering in the UK.
Zhimin Qian’s conviction was the result of many years of work by police and prosecutors. The case has already been dubbed historic, as it combined international fraud, a record-breaking cryptocurrency seizure and a demonstration of new methods of combating cybercrime.
