London exposes scam of the century: woman launders £5 billion worth of cryptocurrency
Біткойн. Фото - Reuters
A British court has sentenced a woman in what is already being described as one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency scams. Zhiming Qian, 45, also known as Yadi Zhang, has been convicted of money laundering after a massive Bitcoin scam in China. More than £5 billion worth of cryptocurrency was seized from her.
This is reported by The Guardian.
According to the investigation, from 2014 to 2017, Qian organized a scheme in China that resulted in the loss of about 128,000 depositors’ savings. She kept the funds in Bitcoin. A breakthrough in the investigation occurred in 2018, when British police raided her mansion in Hampstead and seized digital wallet devices containing 61,000 Bitcoin.
After fleeing to the UK, the fraudster, along with her 43-year-old accomplice Jian Wen, tried to launder the money by buying luxury real estate. In May 2024, Wen was sentenced to six years in prison, and earlier this year the court ordered her to repay more than £3 million, otherwise the woman faces another seven years in prison.
“This is one of the largest money laundering cases in UK history and one of the most valuable cryptocurrency cases in the world. Thanks to a thorough investigation and unprecedented cooperation with Chinese law enforcement agencies, we were able to obtain compelling evidence of the criminal origin of crypto assets,” said Will Lyne, head of the British police’s economic and cybercrime unit.
He stressed that the investigation is an important signal to criminals who try to use cryptocurrencies to launder money, and added: “My thoughts are with the thousands of people who have been victims of fraud in this scheme.”
As reported, in March, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a strategic cryptocurrency reserve. However, the market reacted quite unexpectedly – with a fall.
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