The Metropolitan Police’s seven-year investigation right into a record-setting fraudster has ended after she was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in jail on Tuesday.
It follows Zhimin Qian pleading guilty to 2 prices in September, each associated to legal property, specifically cryptocurrency. She confronted one cost for possessing and one other for transferring legal property, each below the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Qian was on the run since 2017 after finishing up a large-scale fraud in China between 2014 and 2017, which affected greater than 128,000 folks.
She established Lantian Gerui, an organization in China that ostensibly developed know-how and mined Bitcoin, attracting many traders whose funds had been later misappropriated.
The 47-year-old, of no fastened tackle, fled China in 2017 to the UK, touring below false paperwork and an assumed identification, after changing the stolen funds into money, jewelry, and Bitcoin.
She rented a mansion within the prosperous London borough of Hampstead, which police raided a 12 months later after receiving intelligence of an tried realization of legal property in London.
The raid led to the seizure of her unimaginable stash of greater than 61,000 Bitcoin, which at immediately’s worth is price £4.8 billion ($6.3 billion) and is considered the one largest confirmed cryptocurrency seizure in historical past.
Qian tried to launder the Bitcoin by buying property in London and abroad, utilizing different folks in a bid to keep away from investigations into the supply of her wealth.
These makes an attempt led to the sentencing of a former assistant, Jian Wen, 44, to 6 years and eight months in jail in 2024 for serving to Qian buy properties in Dubai again in 2019.
Will Lyne, head of the Met’s Financial and Cybercrime Command, stated: “This end result is the results of seven years of devoted investigation by specialist groups from throughout the Met.
“There is no such thing as a doubt this is among the largest and most complicated financial crime investigations we’ve ever undertaken, and immediately’s sentence wouldn’t have been potential with out working carefully with our companions from the Crown Prosecution Service, Nationwide Crime Company, and Chinese language legislation enforcement.
“Organized crime teams are utilizing cryptocurrency to maneuver, disguise, and make investments the earnings of significant crime – however each crypto transaction leaves a hint, and the Met works meticulously with companions to observe that digital path, determine property, and produce offenders to justice.
“Our message is evident – legal property are usually not secure within the UK. The Met stays dedicated to defending the general public and this end result exhibits the lengths we are going to go to safe justice for victims.”
One other affiliate of Qian’s, 47-year-old Seng Hok Ling, was sentenced alongside the grasp fraudster at Southwark Crown Courtroom yesterday to 4 years and 11 months for transferring legal property, specifically cryptocurrency, below the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Lead prosecutor Neil Colville stated: “The imprisoning/sentencing of Zhimin Qian and Seng Hok Ling marks the end result of many years of complicated and detailed work by each the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The undeniable fact that the defendants pleaded responsible are testomony to the thoroughness of the investigation and prosecution.
“The CPS will now work to make sure, by way of legal confiscation and civil proceedings, that the legal property stay past the fraudsters’ attain to firstly freeze after which look to grab the very giant amount of cryptocurrency and different property, presently price round £4.8 billion, utilized by Zhimin Qian to fund her extravagant way of life.”
NCA’s crypto marketing campaign
Whereas not linked to the information this week, the Nationwide Crime Company’s (NCA) newest marketing campaign concentrating on males below 45 coincides with Qian’s sentencing.
It stated the goal demographic is probably the most generally related to cryptocurrency fraud, which “prices the general public tens of millions yearly.”
In keeping with Motion Fraud, the UK’s reporting heart for fraud and cybercrime, it acquired greater than 17,000 reviews of crypto funding fraud in 2024, usually from males aged between 25 and 44.
“Crypto Dream Rip-off Nightmare” is the strapline of the marketing campaign, which goals to focus on the dangers of investing in dodgy crypto schemes, whose operators routinely make off with traders’ money.
A standard technique utilized by these scammers is to supply entry to a faux funding platform, which seems to indicate traders’ funds rising in time.
Additionally they usually declare that cash will be withdrawn at any time, however the funds are stolen on the level they’re first invested.
One particular person who spoke for the marketing campaign stated he was led to imagine his £28,000 ($36,726) funding grew to £400,000 ($524,664) in six months, however was in reality stolen.
Nick Sharp, deputy director of fraud on the Nationwide Financial Crime Centre (NECC) within the NCA, said: “Crypto funding fraud is among the quickest rising varieties of fraud within the UK, skilled by those that imagine their ‘funding’ will vastly develop their cash. The information that their cash has, in fact, been stolen and they’re going to by no means see any returns is a monetary and emotional loss. Lives are destroyed and folks can generally by no means be made entire after falling sufferer to this crime.
“That’s the reason the NCA is actively concentrating on and disrupting the legal networks behind crypto funding fraud by way of investigations and intelligence sharing with worldwide companions. Nevertheless, prevention stays equally as essential as disruptions. ®
