The United Kingdom has handed an 11-year, eight-month prison sentence to Chinese national Zhimin Qian for orchestrating a sophisticated money-laundering operation that converted the proceeds of a vast investment scam into cryptocurrency, luxury real estate and other high-value assets. Her conviction follows one of the most significant anti-money-laundering actions ever undertaken by British law enforcement, culminating in the seizure of 61,000 Bitcoin—now valued at approximately £4.8bn.
Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of laundering illicit funds and holding unlawfully obtained cryptocurrency. UK investigators describe the case as unprecedented in scale. According to Will Lyne, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Economic and Cybercrime Command, the operation represents the UK’s largest recorded cryptocurrency seizure and the highest-value money-laundering case in the country’s history. The investigation laid bare the extent to which criminal enterprises increasingly exploit digital assets to obscure financial trails and evade international scrutiny.
Court records show that between 2014 and 2017, Qian played a key role in a China-based investment scheme that defrauded more than 128,000 people of roughly £4.6bn. Although a considerable portion of the stolen funds was later recovered by Chinese authorities, a substantial amount was diverted by Qian and moved into a cache of Bitcoin stored on a laptop wallet. After fleeing China in 2017, she spent years moving between jurisdictions that lacked extradition agreements, seeking to protect both her assets and her anonymity.
Her activities eventually drew the attention of UK authorities in 2018 when she attempted to purchase three London properties worth £40.5m but failed mandatory due-diligence checks. Police later uncovered incriminating documents and the laptop wallet during a search of a safe-deposit box, providing critical insight into the scale of her spending and the ambitions driving the laundering scheme.
Qian resurfaced in 2023–24 when she, supported by accomplice Senghok Ling, attempted to reactivate a dormant cryptocurrency wallet. Their arrests in April 2024 revealed a lifestyle funded by criminal proceeds, including access to tens of millions of pounds in cryptocurrency, significant cash reserves and multiple forged passports. Ling has since received a separate sentence of four years and eleven months.
UK Attorney General Richard Hermer praised the outcome, stating that the sentencing of both offenders marks a decisive step in holding major fraudsters accountable and delivering justice to the thousands of victims whose savings were siphoned into the scheme.