How China’s crypto queen’s $6.5 billion Bitcoin empire collapsed

How did China’s crypto queen build a $6.5 billion Bitcoin empire before her arrest exposed the biggest crypto crime in history?

China’s Crypto Queen Billion Dollar Scam Exposed

The long history of cryptocurrency fraud has added a new chapter involving billions of dollars across continents.

British prosecutors have found Jiming Qiang, also known as Yadi Zhang, guilty of orchestrating a Ponzi-style investment scam operating in China. The scheme lured more than 100,000 investors, funneling billions of dollars into what appeared to be a legitimate wealth management business.

After years on the run, Chen was arrested in York in 2024 and pleaded guilty in a London court in September 2025 to charges of obtaining criminal property and money laundering. On November 11, she was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison at Southwark Crown Court.

Authorities said her conviction was the result of one of the most complex financial investigations ever conducted by the Metropolitan Police, involving international coordination and detailed tracking of digital assets.

During their investigation, British police discovered an unusually large cache of cryptocurrencies linked to the scam. More than 61,000 Bitcoins (BTC) were seized, making it one of the largest crypto recoveries confirmed in the UK.

At the market value of the case, that amount is 5 billion pounds, or about $6.55 billion. Civil rehabilitation proceedings are currently underway to determine how these funds will be returned to victims.

Several of Mr. Qian’s associates were also convicted of involvement in the transfer and laundering of stolen funds. Seng Hok Ling was sentenced to four years and 11 months in prison, and Jian Wen was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison.

Additional people involved in the original fraud were prosecuted in China, and more than 80 people were convicted.

From investing in Beijing to real estate in the UK

From 2014 to 2017, Zhimin Qian operated a large-scale investment business in China through a company called Lantian Gerui. The scheme targeted everyday investors with the promise of unusually high returns and attracted billions of dollars in total investment.

After the scheme collapsed and multiple indictments followed, Qian left China in July 2017 with a laptop wallet containing tens of thousands of bitcoins.

She entered the UK in September 2017 using a St Kitts and Nevis passport. British authorities later confirmed that she had arrived under multiple aliases and moved around Europe. She kept a low profile while managing the conversion of fraudulent proceeds into virtual currency and cash.

In October 2018, British investigators searched her Hampstead home and seized her safe deposit box the next day. Inside, a digital wallet was found containing 4,741.36 bitcoins, worth around £25.2 million at the time.

Her laundering strategy included moving between fiat and cryptocurrencies, spreading funds across multiple wallets and intermediaries, and attempting to reintroduce assets into the economy through luxury purchases and expensive real estate.

The cover began to be uncovered after suspicious financial activity related to real estate transactions triggered cross-border alerts. British authorities launched a further investigation, and in April 2024, a Metropolitan Police officer arrested Chen in York, along with his colleague Seng Hok Lin.

Investigators seized encrypted electronic equipment, fake passports, cash, gold and more than 61,000 Bitcoins, which were later confirmed to have come from a laundering network.

Who owns the seized Bitcoin?

Victims of the Lantian Gelui scam are demanding that their confiscated Bitcoins be returned to them rather than being held by the British state.

Legal representatives representing multiple victim organizations have publicly stated that the frozen cryptocurrencies are the legitimate property of defrauded investors.

Lawyers William Glover and Stephen Cartwright argued that victims are entitled to recover their assets from Bitcoin, which is currently held under British jurisdiction, noting that these funds have been out of reach for years.

Under the UK Proceeds of Crime Act, victims seeking compensation must apply under section 281 to claim ownership of confiscated assets.

The Crown Prosecution Service has granted a delay to applications for vesting under section 266 while giving affected parties time to seek legal advice and lodge claims.

This approach allows for coordination between individual victims, their legal representatives, and the authorities overseeing the civil rehabilitation process. Two major legal issues emerged from the proceedings.

The first concerns how compensation should be valued, and whether it should match the loss of the renminbi denominated in yuan, or the current market value of the seized Bitcoins (which has skyrocketed since the confiscation). The second question concerns how competing international claims are reconciled.

Prosecutors proposed a court-supervised compensation framework to manage the distribution of funds and address overlapping claims from multiple jurisdictions. The plan is still under judicial review and could face implementation and prioritization issues among claimants.

Although many victims have already received partial compensation through established mechanisms in China, a significant number remain unpaid and are currently seeking compensation through the UK courts.

Legal analysts and independent reports have pointed to several hurdles facing claimants, including the difficulty of proving ownership of specific bitcoins, the need for coordination with Chinese authorities, and the possibility that courts will prioritize repaying original losses over recognizing gains from bitcoin’s rising prices.

Evolution of cryptocurrency crime

The early days of cryptocurrencies witnessed some of the biggest financial crimes in digital history. Incidents like OneCoin and PlusToken revealed how fraudulent networks operated before modern compliance systems.

OneCoin, described in multiple law enforcement filings as a global pyramid scheme, raised billions of dollars from investors without using any real blockchain.

The operators of PlusToken raised an estimated $2-3 billion in cryptocurrencies before disappearing. Investigators then traced the sale of the stolen assets through informal over-the-counter networks and unregulated brokers.

As these scandals came to light, money laundering techniques rapidly evolved. In the early days, criminals relied on poorly regulated exchanges and custodial wallets to hide stolen funds.

As these channels became more powerful, laundering began to occur through on-chain obfuscation tools such as mixers, decentralized financial protocols, and cross-chain bridges.

Large-scale bridge hacks and smart contract abuses have also become a source of theft and a means of disguising existing funds. State-linked hacker groups have begun using cryptocurrency theft to access convertible foreign assets.

In response, authorities and regulators expanded their approach. Blockchain analytics platforms have enabled the tracking of digital money across multiple chains, leading to systematic seizures and prosecutions.

In 2022, the US Treasury sanctioned Tornado Cash Mixer after tracking billions of dollars laundered through it, raising new legal questions about how financial laws apply to decentralized code.

Illegal cryptocurrency activity remains in the billions, according to research by companies such as Chainalysis, but cryptocurrencies’ share of the overall market has declined due to increased scrutiny of exchanges and payment services.

Recovering stolen assets remains a technical and legal challenge. Investigators can seize large sums of money if they prove ownership of the wallets, but their returns are often stalled by disputes over valuation and jurisdiction.

The cycle continues as criminals develop new concealment methods, investigators improve their tracking tools, and courts strive to transform digital evidence into fair monetary recovery. The ultimate victim is still the user and the loop continues.