A female fraudster behind a £5.1 billion Chinese investment fraud has given police access to a further £67 million worth of cryptocurrency contained in on a secret device.
Prosecutors announced in a statement that the seized digital currency could be used to fund a compensation scheme for 128,000 Chinese investors who were conned between 2014-2017.
Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, has agreed to give up her Bitcoin after pleading guilty last month to possessing and transferring criminal property on the first dayof her trial at Southwark Crown Court.
During the interviews in prison with prosecutors and police blast month, Qian finally gave access codes for another device alongside passwords for two digital wallets contain £67 million Bitcoin and another cryptocurrency, Ripple.
The stash has been added to the original £5 billion has Bitcoin hoard, which Chancellor Rachael Reeves has reportedly earmark to help plug the hole in public finances.
However, Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is establishing a compensation scheme for the victims.
One of the Bitcoin was worth around £750 at the start of 2017, when Qian’s friend was exposed, to a record £94,000 this month.
William Glover, from the law firm Fieldfisher, told the Times “Some lost their life savings and many of them are elderly or vulnerable.
The victims have been without their property for some tem years now and are entitled to recover their property from the Bitcoin frozen in this jurisdiction.
The frozen Bitcoin those not belong to the UK state. The UK state does not have the right to freely dispose of the frozen Bitcoin over victims’. legitimate legal and property interests.
The CPS last year published a notice to the victims of the Lantian Gerui fraud.
-9News Nigeria.
