LONDON—A Chinese national who used funds stolen from Chinese investors to buy cryptocurrency, which authorities say is now worth billions of dollars, has been sentenced by a UK court to 11 years and eight months in prison for money laundering.
Southwark Crown Court on Nov. 11 was told of a seven-year hunt to find Qian Zhimin, who set up a company in China called Lantian Gerui (Blue Sky) and, between 2014 and 2017, duped about 128,000 people into investing in her company, which claimed to be developing health products. Qian then converted about 20.2 million pounds ($26.5 million) of the illegally obtained money into bitcoin.
