Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 11, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on Google
Qian Zhimin, a Chinese fraudster, was sentenced in the UK for laundering billions in Bitcoin from a Ponzi scheme, marking a record cryptocurrency seizure.
LONDON (Reuters) -The mastermind of a vast Ponzi scheme in China was on Tuesday jailed in Britain for over 11 years for laundering the proceeds of the fraud into cryptocurrency now worth billions of dollars.
Qian Zhimin pleaded guilty to two money laundering charges in September, after an investigation during which British police seized more than 61,000 bitcoin – currently worth over $6 billion – in one of the largest ever cryptocurrency seizures.
"You were the architect of this offending from its inception to its conclusion," Judge Sally-Ann Hales told Qian while sentencing her at London's Southwark Crown Court.
"The scale of the money laundering is unprecedented. Your motive was one of pure greed."
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Sarah Young)
Money laundering is the process of making illegally obtained money appear legitimate. It typically involves three steps: placement, layering, and integration, which disguise the origins of the funds.
Cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. It operates on decentralized technology called blockchain, which records all transactions across a network of computers.
A Ponzi scheme is a type of investment scam where returns are paid to earlier investors using the capital from newer investors, rather than from profit earned by the operation of a legitimate business.
Financial crime refers to illegal acts committed for financial gain, including fraud, money laundering, and embezzlement. It undermines the integrity of financial systems and can have serious economic consequences.
Explore more articles in the Headlines category
