{"id":38252,"date":"2025-09-30T02:32:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/chinese-woman-convicted-in-uk-after-worlds-biggest-bitcoin-seizure\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T02:32:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:32:57","slug":"chinese-woman-convicted-in-uk-after-worlds-biggest-bitcoin-seizure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/chinese-woman-convicted-in-uk-after-worlds-biggest-bitcoin-seizure\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese woman convicted in UK after &#8216;world&#8217;s biggest&#8217; bitcoin seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">A Chinese national has been convicted of playing a key role in what is believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world, worth more than \u00a35.5bn ($7.4bn).<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty on Monday at Southwark Crown Court, London of illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Between 2014 and 2017, she led a large-scale scam in China by cheating more than 128,000 victims and storing the stolen funds in bitcoin assets, the Metropolitan Police said in a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.met.police.uk\/news\/woman-convicted-following-worlds-largest-seizure-501569\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The Met said the 47-year-old&#8217;s guilty plea follows a seven-year probe into a global money laundering web.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Qian had been &#8220;evading justice&#8221; for five years up to her arrest, which required a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions, said Detective Sergeant Isabella Grotto, who led the Met&#8217;s investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">She fled China using false documents and entered the UK, where she attempted to launder the stolen money by buying property, said the Met.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">She had help from another Chinese national, Jian Wen. The former takeaway worker was jailed for six years and eight months last year for her part in the criminal operation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasingly being used by organised criminals to disguise and transfer assets, so that fraudsters may enjoy the benefits of their criminal conduct,&#8221; said Robin Weyell, deputy chief Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">&#8220;This case, involving the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the UK, illustrates the scale of criminal proceeds available to those fraudsters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Monday&#8217;s conviction marks the &#8220;culmination of years of dedicated investigation&#8221;, which has involved the police and Chinese law enforcement teams, said Will Lyne, the Met&#8217;s Head of Economic and Cybercrime Command.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is working to ensure the fraudsters do not get hold of the stolen funds, the statement added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The CPS said last year that many of the victims had some of their money returned to under a compensation scheme established in China.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Qian is being held in custody ahead of sentencing. The date of her sentencing has yet to be fixed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cy0415kk3rzo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Chinese national has been convicted of playing a key role in what is believed to be the single largest cryptocurrency seizure in the world, worth more than \u00a35.5bn ($7.4bn). Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, pleaded guilty on Monday at Southwark Crown Court, London of illegally acquiring and possessing the cryptocurrency. Between 2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[1164,110,458,5187,12074,983,3833],"class_list":["post-38252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-biggest","tag-bitcoin","tag-chinese","tag-convicted","tag-seizure","tag-woman","tag-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38254,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38252\/revisions\/38254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}