A Chinese woman nicknamed the “Bitcoin Queen” has been sentenced in London to 11 years and eight months in prison for laundering Bitcoin linked to a £5.5 billion ($7.3 billion) cryptocurrency investment fraud.
The sentencing follows a seven-year investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Economic Crime team into international money laundering operations. The investigation revealed that 47-year-old Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, orchestrated a large-scale fraud that defrauded more than 128,000 victims in China between 2014 and 2017.
The case led to the seizure of 61,000 Bitcoin—worth hundreds of millions of pounds at the time and now valued at approximately £5.5 billion—marking the largest cryptocurrency seizure in British history. Another member of the criminal network, 47-year-old Seng Hok Ling from Matlock, Derbyshire, was sentenced to four years and eleven months in prison for transferring criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002).
“She went on to convert a portion of the illegally obtained funds into cash, jewellery and Bitcoin, before fleeing to the UK under an assumed identity,” the Met stated in a press release on Tuesday. “Following intelligence in 2018 about the attempted realisation of criminal assets in London, investigators worked tirelessly to build a case of evidence against her.”
The UK seizure has now surpassed the U.S. Justice Department’s 2022 confiscation of 94,000 Bitcoin linked to the Bitfinex hack, valued at about $3.6 billion, making it the largest single cryptocurrency seizure in global history.
Qian, who raised over 40 billion yuan from roughly 130,000 Chinese investors through a fraudulent investment network, had promised extraordinary returns of 100% to 300%. She gained notoriety in China as the “Bitcoin Queen” for promoting Bitcoin as “digital gold.” When the scheme collapsed in 2017, Qian converted the stolen proceeds into Bitcoin and fled to the United Kingdom. There, she attempted to launder the digital assets through property acquisitions with the assistance of an associate, Jian Wen.
In 2024, both Qian and Ling were arrested, and police seized assets worth £11 million ($14.4 million), including cryptocurrency wallets, encrypted devices, cash, and gold. Wen was sentenced on May 22, 2024, to six years and eight months in prison for her role in the fraudulent operation.
“There is no doubt this is one of the largest and most complex economic crime investigations we have ever undertaken, and today’s sentence would not have been possible without working closely with our partners from the Crown Prosecution Service, National Crime Agency and Chinese law enforcement,” said Will Lyne, Head of the Met’s Economic and Cybercrime Command.
“Organised crime groups are using cryptocurrency to move, hide, and invest the profits of serious crime—but every crypto transaction leaves a trace, and the Met works meticulously with partners to follow that digital trail, identify assets and bring offenders to justice.”
