'Professional Money Launderer' Ordered to Pay UK $7.6M Over Zhimin Qian Case
The UK Crown Prosecution Service has ordered Seng Hok Ling, a Malaysian national and convicted money launderer, to pay back over $7.6 million (£5 million) within three months or face an extra eight years in prison. Ling received 83.7 BTC from Zhimin Qian—also known as Yadi Zhang—a Chinese fraudster who ran a Ponzi scheme through Lantian Gerui, defrauding 128,000 mostly elderly Chinese investors out of $600 million between 2014 and 2017. Qian laundered proceeds via cryptocurrency, converting some to Bitcoin and fleeing to the UK. Attempts to cash out and purchase luxury properties in London were blocked by compliance checks. Qian was arrested in April 2024, leading to the UK’s largest crypto seizure: 61,000 BTC, now worth $5.4 billion. The eventual allocation of these coins remains undecided, with victims due compensation and surplus funds possibly going to the UK Treasury or creating a strategic reserve. The UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act empowers authorities to seize overseas criminal assets and retain them, regardless of the original victims’ losses. Civil proceedings are underway to resolve distribution.
