Qian Zhimin, the main culprit in the 60,000 Bitcoin money laundering case, was sentenced to 6 years in prison in the first instance

On May 24th, 2nd-round Moderation, a Southwark court in London, ruled that Qian Zhimin, a 42-year-old Chinese, was guilty of money laundering and will serve six years and eight months in prison. Earlier, Qian Zhimin tried to buy a number of luxury houses in London, including a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead for 23.50 million pounds, and a mansion with a private cinema and gym for 12.50 million pounds, which attracted the attention of the police. The investigation found that 61,000 bitcoins worth more than 3 billion pounds were found in the digital wallet, setting a record for the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the UK. There are still 23,300 bitcoins in circulation, worth more than 1 billion pounds. The bitcoins are said to have originated from a £5 billion investment scam in China from 2014 to 2017, in which funds were transferred abroad and used to buy cryptocurrencies. Qian Zhimin was not directly involved in the scam, but acted as a "front desk" to help disguise the source of the laundered funds.