Woman pleads guilty to money laundering after UK's biggest ever Bitcoin seizure

A woman has pleaded guilty to money laundering offences over the UK's biggest-ever cryptocurrency seizure of Bitcoin, currently worth more than £5bn.

Chinese national Yadi Zhang, 47, who is also known as Zhimin Qian, was arrested in April last year after spending years on the run. She first arrived in the UK on a false St Kitts and Nevis passport in September 2017 after allegedly carrying out a £5bn investment scam in China involving 130,000 investors in fraudulent wealth schemes between 2014 and 2017.

Police first raided her £5m six-bedroom rented house near Hampstead Heath, in north London, on 31 October 2018. But it was another two and a half years before investigators discovered more than 61,000 Bitcoin in digital wallets - one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency seizures in the world.

The cryptocurrency was worth £1.4bn at the time but its value has now risen to more than £5bn and the fortune is at the centre of an intense battle between the UK government and Chinese investors over who gets to keep it. The seized assets have reportedly been earmarked by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to help plug the hole in the public finances.

Zhang was due to face trial at Southwark Crown Court but has pleaded guilty to charges of possessing criminal property and transferring criminal property on or before 23 April 2024. She appeared in the dock wearing glasses and a beige cardigan over an animal print blouse, nodding to confirm her identity before entering her pleas with the help of a Mandarin interpreter.

Judge Sally-Ann Hales remanded Zhang in custody ahead of sentencing at a later date. Prosecutor Gillian Jones KC said she would not apply to launch confiscation proceedings because of the ongoing proceedings in the High Court.

Jian Wen, 43, was last year jailed for six years and eight months after being found guilty of one count of money laundering between October 2017 and January 2022 relating to 150 Bitcoin, now worth around £12.5m. Her trial heard Wen was not involved in the alleged fraud but was said to have acted as a "front person" to help disguise the source of the money, some of which had been used to buy cryptocurrency and smuggled out of China on laptops.

Will Lyne, the Metropolitan Police's head of economic and cybercrime command, said Zhang's guilty pleas marked the culmination of "years of dedicated investigation". "This is one of the largest money laundering cases in UK history and among the highest-value cryptocurrency cases globally," he said.

Zhang's solicitor, Roger Sahota of Berkeley Square Solicitors, said: "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.".