Thursday, November 13, 2025 - A Chinese woman nicknamed the “Goddess of Wealth” has been sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison by a UK court for masterminding a multibillion-dollar bitcoin fraud that duped over 100,000 investors.
Zhimin Qian, 47, was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme
that defrauded around 128,000 people in China between 2014 and 2017, promising
returns of up to 300 percent. The scheme raised billions of dollars, much of
which was converted into bitcoin.
British authorities later seized 61,000 bitcoins worth more
than £5 billion ($6.6 billion), the largest single cryptocurrency seizure
in the world, according to the Metropolitan Police. Qian was arrested in the
northern English city of York in 2024 after years of evading capture.
Judge Sally-Ann Hales, who handed down the sentence at
London’s Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, described the crimes as “highly
sophisticated and requiring careful planning,” adding, “Your motive was one of
pure greed.”
Qian pleaded guilty in September to possessing and
transferring criminal property. Her lawyer, Roger Sahota, said after sentencing
that she “accepts” her conviction, noting, “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.”
A Malaysian accomplice, Seng Hok Ling, also 47, was
sentenced to four years and 11 months after pleading guilty to one count of
transferring criminal property.
Following scrutiny from Chinese authorities, Qian, also
known as Yadi Zhang, fled her home country in 2017 and relocated to the
UK, where she lived a lavish lifestyle. She rented a £17,000-a-month
London property, stayed in luxury hotels across Europe, and purchased
jewellery, including two watches worth nearly £120,000.
Police surveillance of Ling eventually led to Qian’s arrest
in April 2024. Her associate, Jian Wen, was jailed last year for six years and
eight months for her role in the scam.
The Metropolitan Police’s head of economic and cybercrime
command, Will Lyne, said the seven-year investigation was one of the largest
and most complex the force had ever undertaken, requiring collaboration with
Chinese law enforcement.
More than 1,300 victims have come forward in ongoing civil
proceedings at London’s High Court, where British authorities are developing a
compensation scheme.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP that
Chinese and British authorities are “cooperating on cross-border fugitive and
asset recovery” in connection with the case
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