Fixer repays £5.6m after helping launder proceeds of Chinese fraud

Hok Seng Ling, a fixer for Chinese fraudster Zhimin Qian, has repaid £5.6 million to the UK Government after admitting he helped launder proceeds from a vast investment scam. The recovery comes as Chinese investors seek to stop the Government retaining a much larger Bitcoin holding seized during the investigation.

Qian’s Ponzi scheme defrauded more than 128,000 investors in China between 2014 and 2017, and its proceeds were converted into Bitcoin. Ling, 48, helped Qian evade police and was jailed for four years and 11 months; the full £5,603,305 confiscation order has been recovered, plus £1,990 in interest. A UK court has ruled that Chinese law should govern victims’ claims to 61,000 seized Bitcoin, now valued at about £3.8 billion, making it harder for them to establish ownership.