Qian Zhimin: How a billion pound bitcoin scammer escaped China on a moped
While Chinese police captured the architect of a massive Ponzi scheme that saved thousands of lives, a woman in her mid-40s fled with her accomplice to the Myanmar border on a motorcycle, having been on the run for almost seven years.
After zigzagging through Southeast Asia, he landed at London’s Heathrow airport in September 2017 with a fake St Kitts and Nevis passport in the name of Zhang Yadi.
Zhang, whose real name is Qian Zhimin, converted Bitcoin into cash to buy jewelry and luxury goods until his arrest in April 2024, avoiding countries that extradited to China while traveling in Europe with an assistant.
Before and during Qian’s sentencing this week, prosecutors and police cited documents collected during their investigation, in addition to information from Chinese authorities, that provided some insight into Qian’s life and criminality.
Qian was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison at Southwark Crown Court in London on Tuesday for laundering the proceeds of Chinese fraud using Bitcoin.
Shortly after his arrival in Britain, he sent an accomplice to Thailand to retrieve a laptop containing some of the 70,000 Bitcoins worth around £305 million ($410 million) he had taken while fleeing China.
Prosecutors said Qian also tried to buy a villa in Tuscany and luxury properties in London to launder proceeds from his fraud, but it was a 2018 attempt to buy a house that put him on the radar of British police.
Although he apparently spent most of his days in Britain in bed in front of a laptop in a series of rented properties, Qian had grand ambitions to rule Liberland, a so-called “micronation” on the Croatia-Serbian border, according to a diary found by police.
Bitcoin came from China scam
Qian has denied allegations of fraud in China, where authorities say about 128,000 people fell victim to a 40 billion renminbi ($5.62 billion) investment scheme between 2014 and 2017.
But in September, on the first day of his trial, he changed his plea to guilty and admitted to laundering the proceeds of a massive fraud and launching a war for the remaining billions of bitcoins.
British police seized devices holding approximately 61,000 bitcoins from a property rented by Qian in London and a nearby safe deposit box in 2018, following a tip from lawyers to whom Qian’s assistant had applied to buy a house.
When police actually accessed Bitcoin in 2021, it was worth £1.5bn. It is now worth around £5 billion ($6.7 billion) due to the continued rise in Bitcoin’s value.
Prosecutors said British authorities continued to recover more assets, including around £67 million worth of Bitcoin, which was found in a specially designed secret pocket inside the trousers Qian was wearing when he was arrested.
Prosecutors are evaluating compensation plan
The seized assets are subject to civil lawsuits filed by British prosecutors, who said last month they were considering a compensation plan for victims of Chinese fraud. Some say they want Bitcoin itself.
Qian was assisted in his attempts to launder the bitcoin he smuggled from China by two facilitators, both convicted of money laundering offenses in Britain.
Wen Jian was working in a Chinese takeaway in London and traveling around Europe to convert bitcoin into cash before he met Qian shortly after his arrival in Britain.
Wen denied money laundering but was convicted after a retrial last year and sentenced to nearly seven years in prison.
After Wen’s arrest in 2022, Qian found a new assistant, Ling Seng Hok, a Malaysian citizen who converted Bitcoin into cash, rented property, and hired staff who doubled their salaries if they were detained or deported.
Prosecutors said Ling, 47, also tried to obtain a fake Malaysian or Hong Kong passport for Qian using a photo of former Hong Kong actor Shen Dianxia.
Police said Ling, who was sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison on Wednesday, mistakenly took them to Qian in northern England in 2024 and moved some bitcoin to an account opened by Ling.
