Chinese fraudster involved in world’s largest cryptocurrency seizure jailed

Local TV

A Chinese fraudster has been jailed after masterminding a scam that led UK police to make the world’s largest ever cryptocurrency seizure of Bitcoin worth more than £5.5 billion.

Transcript

00:00of an investment fraud or a Ponzi scheme that operated in China when there are over 128,000

00:06victims of that from all different provinces across China and from all different walks of life.

00:11Many of those victims sadly lost everything, lost their life savings and they introduced their

00:17friends and family and colleagues into this scheme and so hopefully today marks justice for those

00:23victims. 47 year old Ximin Qian defrauded more than 128,000 victims in China through a Ponzi scheme

00:34before fleeing to the UK as an international fugitive. She has been jailed for 11 years and

00:40eight months. When Qian and her accomplice were convicted, the value of the Bitcoin in their

00:49possession was priced at more than £5.5 billion, according to the Metropolitan Police.

00:58It is understood that the value is constantly changing and is currently priced at around £5 billion.

01:07When Qian moved to London, she started renting a lavish property in Hampstead,

01:14having told an estate agent a lie that she ran a successful jewellery business. The monthly rent

01:22for this property was around £17,500 a month. It was in 2018 when Qian attempted to purchase a £12.5

01:33million property here in the capital and after suspicions were raised over her Bitcoin,

01:41UK authorities were notified. So as part of this investigation we've collaborated very closely

01:48with colleagues from the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency here in the UK and

01:54we've also had unprecedented levels of cooperation with our Chinese law enforcement partners as part

01:58of this investigation. So we had 18 victims who were scheduled to video link into court and testifying

02:06court and I think for the first time ever to our knowledge we had two Chinese law enforcement

02:10officers who were due to testify live in the UK court and that demonstrates the value of our

02:14international cooperation and our relationships and bringing about justice for this type of money

02:20laundering activity. So we know that organised crime groups are increasingly utilising cryptocurrencies to

02:26move, hide and invest their ill-gotten gains.

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