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Southwark Crown Court in London,
England
sentenced the ‘Goddess of Wealth’ to 11 years and eight months in prison
China
‘ Zhimin Qian because of a fraud case that has been going on for years on Tuesday (11/11).
The court found Qian guilty of money laundering and possession of illegally obtained cryptocurrency.
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Judge Sally Ann Hales, in an official release, said Qian helped mastermind an investment fraud in China between 2014 and 2017 that defrauded 128,000 people of around £4.6 billion or IDR 100 trillion.
Most of the funds were later confiscated by police in China.However, Hales said something else.
“A large amount of funds were stolen and used by Qian, then transferred to 70,000 Bitcoins stored in a laptop wallet,” Hales said in an official release, quoted
Al Jazeera
.
As part of the investigation into the case, police seized 61,000 Bitcoins.Head of London Metropolitan Police’s Economic and Cyber Crime Command Will Lyne said this case was one of the largest and most complex economic crime investigations ever carried out.
“This is the largest cryptocurrency seizure by law enforcement in the UK to date and is the largest case of money laundering in history by value,” Lyne said in an official statement.
Qian fled China in 2017 and spent the next seven years on the run.He traveled between the UK and other countries without an extradition treaty with China.
He and his accomplices attracted the attention of British authorities in 2018. At that time, Qian bought three properties in London worth 40.5 million pounds.However, he failed to fulfill the requirement of “know your customer.”
Qian then fled London in 2020. However, before leaving, the police searched and confiscated his belongings from a safe, including a laptop smuggled from China.
Hales said documents found during the search provided an indication of Qian’s monthly spending levels.
“And the huge ambitions he had for his future using the proceeds of his crimes,” said Hales.
Qian came to police attention again last year.At that time, he started using the inactive wallet with the help of a second accomplice, Senghok Ling (47), a Malaysian citizen living in the UK.Ling was separately sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison.
When police arrested Ling and Qian in April 2024, the two were living a luxurious lifestyle in England.At that time, Qian was found to have cryptocurrency worth 62 million pounds (US$81.4 million), a large amount of cash and two fake passports.
(isa/rds)
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