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A woman from China received a prison sentence of over 11 years in the UK on Tuesday for leading a bitcoin fraud scheme valued at more than 5 billion pounds (€5.6 billion).

Zhimin Qian, also referred to as Yadi Zhang, admitted guilt in September for illegally obtaining and holding the cryptocurrency.

Her admission of guilt came after a seven-year investigation into international money laundering. The 47-year-old was involved in a major fraud in China between 2014 and 2017, where she tricked over 128,000 people and kept the stolen money in bitcoin assets.

Qian left China using fake documents and entered the UK, where she tried to clean the illicit funds by buying property in late 2018. She was arrested last year following almost six years of evading capture, as reported by British officials.

The London Metropolitan Police confiscated a total of 61,000 bitcoins from Qian, which they have referred to as the biggest verified cryptocurrency confiscation globally.

After her conviction in September, the bitcoin collection was valued at €6.3 billion. It is currently estimated to be around €5.6 billion.

On Tuesday, Qian received an 11-year and eight-month prison sentence at London’s Southwark Crown Court.

You were the mastermind behind this wrongdoing from start to finish,” stated Judge Sally-Ann Hales. “The extent of your money laundering is without precedent. Your reason was purely driven by greed.

Qian’s associate, 47-year-old Malaysian citizen Seng Hok Ling, received a prison sentence of four years and 11 months following a guilty plea for transferring illicit assets.

A 43-year-old Chinese woman named Jian Wen was sentenced last year for her involvement in a bitcoin scam. Wen received a prison term of six years and eight months.

“It’s undeniable that this is among the biggest and most intricate economic crime investigations we’ve ever handled,” stated Will Lyne, head of the Metropolitan Police’s economic and cybercrime command.

Organized crime syndicates are leveraging cryptocurrency to transfer, conceal, and invest the proceeds from severe criminal activities — however, each crypto transaction creates a record,” he stated. “Our message is straightforward — illicit assets are not secure within the UK.