A Chinese national accused of running a fraudulent investment scheme pleaded guilty in a London court on Monday after U.K. police seized nearly $7 billion worth of bitcoin during a raid of her home in north London.
Zhimin Qian, 47, ran a large fraud scheme in China through her company Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology — offering people investment products and promising outlandish returns of nearly 300 percent.
The Metropolitan Police say Qian ran the fraud between 2014 and 2017, stealing billions of dollars from more than 128,000 victims. She stored the stolen money in bitcoin and fled China for the U.K. using a fake passport from St. Kitts and Nevis.
After entering the U.K. in September 2018, she partnered with another woman, Jian Wen, to launder the money by purchasing lavish properties and running other businesses
An October 2018 raid by U.K. police uncovered several laptops holding the keys to 61,000 bitcoin — which is now worth about $6.9 billion or £5.5 billion.
The Met Police said it “is believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world.” Will Lyne, the Met’s Head of Economic and Cybercrime Command, said his team worked on the seven-year investigation with Chinese law enforcement and called it among the highest-value cryptocurrency cases globally.
“Today’s guilty plea marks the culmination of years of dedicated investigation by the Met’s Economic Crime teams and our partners,” he said.
“My thoughts are with the thousands of victims defrauded in this scheme, and I hope today’s outcome acknowledges the harm Qian inflicted and reinforces the Met’s unwavering commitment to justice.”
Sky News reported that there is now an intense negotiation over the stolen funds, with the U.K. government eager to keep it to plug budget holes and Chinese investors demanding it be returned to them.
Qian pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property. She will be sentenced at a later date.
Detective Sergeant Isabella Grotto said Qian had been evading police for five years. The U.K.’s National Crime Agency and law enforcement agencies in Tianjin and Beijing spent years coordinating on her case.
Her trial began last week and, before she pleaded guilty, was expected to go on for weeks. She had long argued that the funds were obtained legally and that charges in China were political persecution for her involvement in cryptocurrency after a 2017 crackdown by Beijing that allegedly precipitated the ponzi-scheme’s downfall.
Qian’s co-conspirator Wen was convicted of crimes related to laundering the funds last year and was sentenced to more than six years in prison.
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Jonathan Greig
is a Breaking News Reporter at Recorded Future News. Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014. Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.
