UK Court Hears of 7-Year Odyssey to Find Mastermind of $5.62 Billion China Fraud
Udumbara
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LONDON—A Chinese national who police said bought cryptocurrency now worth billions using funds from Chinese investors has been sentenced by a UK court to 11 years and eight months in prison for money laundering.
Southwark Crown Court on Nov. 11 was told of a seven-year hunt to find Qian Zhimin, who set up a company in China called Lantian Gerui (Blue Sky) and, between 2014 and 2017, duped about 128,000 people into investing in her company, which claimed to be developing health products. Qian then converted about 20.2 million pounds ($26.5 million) of the illegally obtained money into bitcoin.
The two-day sentencing hearing heard that Qian, who used the alias Yadi Zhang, used promotional videos to con investors in China into entrusting their money with Lantian Gerui.
An accomplice, Malaysian national Seng Hok Ling, 47, who helped her hide out in a series of Airbnbs in Britain until her eventual arrest in April 2024, pleaded guilty to one offense of entering into a money laundering arrangement.
‘Pure Greed’
In sentencing remarks on Nov. 11, Judge Sally-Ann Hales said the scale of money laundering was unprecedented.Hales said Qian left China without a thought for the victims of the fraud and “lied and schemed” for years in a bid to keep hold of the money she had obtained.
Her assistant, 43-year-old Wen Jian, was jailed for 6 years and 8 months at the same court last year for her role in the scheme.
Prosecutor Gillian Jones KC told the court it was a classic Ponzi scheme that used money from new investors to pay others, without actually generating any profits.
The prosecutor said Qian had transferred some of the Lantian Gerui investors’ money into cryptocurrency. She bought 143,951 bitcoin through the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange in China, and then purchased another 51,000 bitcoin in “over the counter” transactions, she said.
“In January 2017, Beijing TV ran a news story exposing Lantian Gerui,” Jones said. On Jan. 21, 2017, the daughter of an investor became the first to report the fraud to police in the city of Tianjin, she added.
“Ms. Qian had planned her escape route from as early as February 2017,” Jones said, adding that she applied for citizenship in the tiny Caribbean state of St. Kitts and Nevis, in the name of Yadi Zhang.
“St. Kitts and Nevis is an island country in the Caribbean which offers citizenship, and a passport, to individuals who invest substantial sums of money in the country.”
Jones said that Qian was able to purchase the passport in June 2017 for $250,000.
Escaped on Moped
Jones said Qian traveled to the border on a moped and then used the St. Kitts and Nevis passport to cross the frontier, before flying to Bangkok and eventually traveling to Heathrow airport on Sept. 16, 2017.On arrival in London, Qian hired Wen to find her a house she could rent.
Qian also used it to obtain a driving license, a UK bank account, and an account at the London luxury department store Harrods.
Between November 2017 and May 2018, Qian also traveled extensively in Europe, staying in expensive hotels in Berlin, Zurich, Prague, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
In October 2018, police searched Qian’s rented home in Hampstead and discovered several laptops containing cryptocurrency wallets.
At the time, they were not aware of her true identity, and she was not arrested.
Wen was eventually arrested in June 2021 and charged with money laundering the following year. She went on trial twice, first in 2023 and then in 2024.
“Ms. Qian was fully aware that the police wanted to speak to her,” Jones said.“For nearly six years, Ms. Qian managed to evade arrest. On Feb. 25, 2024, as Ms. Wen’s trial was ongoing at Southwark Crown Court, a transfer was made of 8.2 bitcoin from the cryptocurrency wallet known as Rainbow ... [which] had remained dormant for almost five years.”
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She said the police were monitoring Qian’s so-called Rainbow cryptocurrency wallet and managed to trace the transfer to Ling, who had rented a property, from Airbnb, in the city of York in the north of England.
Jones said a search warrant was executed at the house on April 22, 2024, and Qian was arrested along with four Malaysian nationals, who had allegedly been brought in by Ling to work illegally, shopping, cooking, and cleaning for her.
“They were all foreign nationals brought specifically to the UK to work for her, they were not permitted to work in the UK, so were less likely to go to the police, and the contracts they signed had punitive financial consequences if they were breached,” Jones said.
“It may well be that when Mr. Ling met Ms. Qian that she informed him she was a successful businesswoman operating in the cryptocurrency market and that she was being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party. She was not.”
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After her arrest, police found more cryptocurrency wallets and also discovered a large amount had been converted into a stablecoin, USDT—also known as Tether—which had been used to purchase several properties in Dubai.
Jones said more than 80 people who had worked with or for Qian at Lantian Gerui had been prosecuted and convicted in China.
Bullish for Bitcoin
Thomas said Qian had always believed that significant profits could be made from bitcoin.He said his client had consented to a Civil Recovery Order being made, and the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, had indicated in the High Court in London that he intended to seek such an order to compensate victims.
Ling’s barrister, Narita Bahra KC, said his actions had to be considered on the basis that he was guided by a “moral compass,” believing Qian was being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Bahra said Ling was being paid for his work by Qian, and there was no evidence of “enrichment” or that he shared her luxury lifestyle.
She said the total he laundered was about $3.74 million, which was less than 0.1 percent of the value of the Lantian Gerui fraud.
After sentencing, Qian’s lawyer, Roger Sahota, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that his client is sorry for the distress suffered by investors.
“Bitcoin pioneer Ms Qian, once the world’s largest female BTC holder, accepts her conviction and the mistakes that led to it,” Sahota said. “She never set out to commit fraud but recognises her investment schemes were fraudulent and misled those who trusted her. She is deeply sorry for the distress suffered by investors and hopes some good endures from the wealth her work created.”
Sahota said governments around the world are closely watching the case.
“UK authorities are applying laws focused on restoring funds to victims rather than sharing profits—meaning any surplus recovered could be retained by the state,” Sahota said. “This approach effectively turns enforcement into a potential new source of government revenue and could set a precedent for how some cryptocurrency-related crimes are handled in the future.”
Hales did not have the power to deport Qian or Ling, but under the 2007 UK Border Act, a foreign criminal who is sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least 12 months is subject to an automatic deportation process.
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