The Metropolitan Police announced Monday the seizure of some $7.3 billion in bitcoin following the conviction of Zhimin Qian, the "Bitcoin Queen," who defrauded over 128,000 victims through a large-scale fraud operation.
"The seizure results from an inquiry which was launched in 2018 on the back of intelligence received about the transfer of criminal assets," the Met said in a statement about Qian's conviction, "where the Met seized 61,000 Bitcoin from the Chinese national Zhimin Qian (also known as Yadi Zhang)."
The agency said that Qian "orchestrated a large-scale fraud in China through defrauding over 128,000 victims and went on to store the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets." The fraud is said to have taken place from 2014 to 2017. In 2018, Qian was said to have "fled China" and entered the UK, where she tried to launder the crypto.
BleepingComputer reports that the $7.3 billion valuation of the 61,000 Bitcoins that Qian stole makes this the largest cryptocurrency seizure to date. It's worth noting that Bitcoin's fluctuating price makes it difficult to compare specific cases; however, previous seizures have involved more Bitcoin that happened to be at a lower valuation.
"Today’s guilty plea marks the culmination of years of dedicated investigation by the Met’s Economic Crime teams and our partners," the Met's head of economic and cybercrime command, Will Lyne, said. "This is one of the largest money laundering cases in UK history and among the highest-value cryptocurrency cases globally."
Qian isn't the first woman to be dubbed "queen" of the cryptocurrency underworld. BBC devoted a podcast to its efforts to find "The Missing Cryptoqueen," whose real name is Dr. Ruja Ignatova, after she conned people into investing "billions" into a cryptocurrency dubbed OneCoin that was supposed to rival Bitcoin.
But at least Qian and Ignatova have been compared to royalty. Another high-profile case involving an attempt to launder $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex saw its perpetrators, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, referred to merely as "Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde" after they were caught living an... interesting lifestyle.
That's probably to be expected, however, given the risk-reward analysis that has to go into this kind of crime. On the one hand, the frequency with which these cases are successfully prosecuted should be a deterrent for would-be scammers, thieves, and launderers. On the other hand, the illicit funds at stake are enormous and often prove too tempting for some.
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