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Crypto worth £67m found hidden in Bitcoin fraudster’s trousers - INDEPENDENT
A fraudster behind the UK’s largest every cryptocurrency seizure of £5.1bn Bitcoin has given police access to a further £67m after a digital storage device was discovered inside her jogging bottoms.
Zhimin Qian pleaded guilty to money laundering offences at Southwark Crown Court in September, following a seven-year investigation, and agreed to forfeit all her cryptocurrency.
The 47-year-old, also known as Yadi Zhang, defrauded more than 128,000 victims through a scheme in China between 2014 and 2017 and stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets, according to the Metropolitan Police.
Scotland Yard said Qian played a leading role in the scam.
In 2018, the Chinese national came to the UK after fleeing her home country using false documents and attempted to launder the proceeds through purchasing property with the help of Jian Wen in September of that year, police said.
Wen, a former takeaway worker, was jailed for her role in the scheme last year after being found with Bitcoin wallets worth more than £2 billion.
The initial £5.1bn haul of Bitcoin was seized after police raided Qian’s home in Hamsptead in 2018, but she went on the run and was later arrested in York.
A digital device containing the extra £67m was discovered in a concealed pocket of her trousers, for which she provided the access codes and passwords to police during interviews in prison last month, The Times reports.
During a High Court hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors announced that the seized cryptocurrency would fund a compensation scheme for her victims.
It has not been disclosed if her victims, many of whom had invested in Qian’s scheme, the Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology Company, will receive their original investment or the increased value of Bitcoin.
British lawyers who represent more than 1,000 of her victims are seeking the current value, which has increased from £750 in 2017, to a record £94,000 by October 2025.
William Glover, from the law firm Fieldfisher, told The Times: “Some lost their life savings and many of them are elderly or vulnerable. The victims have been without their property for some ten years now and are entitled to recover their property from the bitcoin frozen in this jurisdiction.
“The frozen bitcoin does not belong to the UK state. The UK state does not have the right to freely dispose of the frozen bitcoin over victims’ legitimate legal and proprietary interests.”
