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A woman accused of laundering bitcoin derived from a £5bn investment fraud she allegedly ran in China has pleaded guilty at the start of her trial in London.
Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, entered guilty pleas to two charges on Monday at Southwark Crown Court, namely possessing cryptocurrency that was criminal property and transferring it.
Qian, 47, wearing a brown cardigan, animal print top and glasses, entered her pleas via an interpreter on what was supposed to be the first day of her trial. She will be sentenced at a later date.
She first came to the attention of the UK authorities during a 2018 police raid on a Hampstead mansion in 2018, when officers seized devices containing 61,000 bitcoin — one of the biggest crypto hauls found by law enforcement anywhere and worth more than £5bn in today’s prices.
The Metropolitan Police did not realise the devices contained the bitcoin until 2021, by which point Qian’s whereabouts were unknown. She was not charged until April 2024 after she was apprehended in York.
Qian’s lawyer, Roger Sahota of Berkeley Square Solicitors, put out a statement in May 2024 claiming Qian had to flee China in 2017 in secret due to a “government crackdown on successful crypto entrepreneurs causing her to fear unjust arrest, mistreatment and the unlawful seizure of her assets”.
Sahota said on Monday: “By pleading guilty today, Ms Zhang hopes to bring some comfort to investors who have waited since 2017 for compensation, and to reassure them that the significant rise in cryptocurrency values means there are more than sufficient funds available to repay their losses.”
In 2018, police had originally been investigating a suspicious and botched property purchase by an assistant of Qian’s, Jian Wen, who has since been convicted.
Little is known about Qian’s life before she ran a Chinese company called Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology, launched in March 2014.
The company sold investment products, promising returns of up to 300 per cent, according to UK court documents from the case of Qian’s former assistant in Britain, Wen, who was convicted of money laundering in 2024. Lantian also claimed to have a side business in bitcoin mining.
Ultimately, Qian funnelled her investors’ money into a crypto exchange, converted it to bitcoin and fled in July 2017 after an investigation in China began, using various identities to evade authorities, according to UK law enforcement.
Questions remain over what will happen to the 61,000 bitcoin. The Crown Prosecution Service has started civil recovery proceedings in the High Court.
“The CPS will now work to ensure, through criminal confiscation and civil proceedings, that the criminal assets remain beyond the fraudsters’ reach,” said Robin Weyell, deputy chief crown prosecutor for the CPS.
In a digital diary seized by UK police, Qian recorded her desire to be anointed “Reincarnated Goddess” by the Dalai Lama, and her plans for the kingdom she would rule in “Liberland”, a 7 sq km unrecognised and uninhabited micronation located on the Danube between Croatia and Serbia.
Qian’s plans included a Buddhist temple, infrastructure including an airport and port, and a £5mn crown and sceptre.
However, Wen testified in court that Qian’s life was not glamorous. Qian had difficulty walking as a result of a car accident and most days spent about 20 hours in bed with her laptop, playing games, shopping and transacting bitcoin.