Zhimin Qian, the Chinese citizen who bought billions of pounds worth of digital assets using the proceeds of a vast investment fraud in China, has been jailed in the United Kingdom for 11 years and 8 months.
The sentencing brings an end to a six-year-long investigation that involved both the largest digital asset seizure and the highest-value money laundering case in U.K. history, according to Will Lyne, the Met’s Head of Economic and Cybercrime Command.
“Organized crime groups are using cryptocurrency to move, hide and invest the profits of serious crime – but every crypto transaction leaves a trace, and the Met works meticulously with partners to follow that digital trail, identify assets and bring offenders to justice,” said Lyne in a statement.
“Our message is clear – criminal assets are not safe in the U.K. The Met remains committed to protecting the public and this outcome reflects not only the scale of the criminality but also the harm suffered by the victims.”
Qian, known colloquially as the ‘cryptoqueen’, fled to the U.K. on a fake passport in 2017 after she had come under investigation by Chinese police. Qian had set up a company in China for what she told investors would become a block reward mining operation that invested in nascent technologies.
According to U.K. police, the company was never intended to be legitimate. It took money from over 100,000 Chinese investors, which Qian embezzled for herself, buying digital assets that would grow to be worth more than £5 billion ($6.5 billion).
After fleeing to the U.K., Qian set about converting her digital asset stash into spendable assets. To do so, she posed as a wealthy diamond heiress and hired an assistant, whom she asked to begin converting the digital assets into cash and property.
Qian’s attempts to purchase a mansion in the wealthy area of Totteridge Common brought her to the attention of London’s Metropolitan Police, who began investigating the source of her wealth. When the police eventually raided her £17,000 ($22,319) a month mansion in October 2018, they found a trove of hard drives containing the vast digital asset fortune.
Qian was charged with and convicted of two counts of acquiring and possessing criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The counts carry a maximum of 14 years of imprisonment. Qian received 11 years and 8 months.
Two others have also been convicted in connection with the scheme. Jian Wen, an assistant hired to help launder the funds in the U.K., received six years and eight months of imprisonment. Senghok Ling, who helped transfer some £2.5 million ($3.2 million) of the digital assets, was sentenced to four years and 11 months.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Sally-Ann Hales on Tuesday.
Attention will now inevitably turn to the stash of digital assets that was under Qian’s control. Both the state and the victims can bring civil cases under the U.K.’s Proceeds of Crime Act in order to recover amounts lost as proceeds of crime.
The BBC also reported that the Crown Prosecution Service is considering a compensation scheme for those who are not represented in the inevitable civil case.
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Source: https://coingeek.com/chinese-cryptoqueen-gets-11-years-over-5b-fraud/
