插圖來源：https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin.asp
過去一星期讀到一些關於「錢志敏 50 億英鎊洗黑錢案」的英語評論文章，有參考價值，節錄如下。都是這個博客曾經介紹過的作者，裡面提及的一些細節和觀點，剛好把之前的兩篇博客文章連結起來，英文的說法叫 Connecting the dots。讀者如果把這個月發表的三篇博客文章互相参照，主線會更加清晰和立體。
兩篇英語評論文章都討論同一個問題：已經被轉換成比特幣 (Bitcoin) 的犯罪收入（連同比特幣的升值金額）該如何處理。Oliver Bullough 的那一篇讓你明白「錢志敏 50 億英鎊洗黑錢案」令中英關係再添談判籌碼。Martin Purbrick 的文章詳述錢志敏的職業騙徒生涯，結尾指出中英兩國之間存在法律機制處理被執法部門所沒收的犯罪資產，是執法者的角度。
「錢志敏 50 億英鎊洗黑錢案」很有趣，因為她在中國境內的犯罪收入（來自出售理財產品即是非法集資）已經被轉化成比特幣，並且跨國轉移，部份變成外國物業。此案的處理方法會成為重要先例，供其他國家參考。有理由相信，有溫州幫出沒和洗黑錢的歐洲國家（例如：意大利和西班牙）以及曾經破獲福建幫特大洗黑錢案的新加坡（前英國殖民地兼國際金融中心）會密切關注英國的處理手法。
另外，案件的時機也很有趣，英國的工黨政府上台之後，多次被右翼英語傳媒（舊媒體）指責面對中國的態度太過軟弱，但是同一時間英國又有很多問題需要跟中國談判或協商。講錢？有經貿關係需要處理。講政治？有香港問題（BNO 港人的永久居留權）和是否批准中國在倫敦設立「超級使館」，還有（不止一宗的）間諜案，令工黨政府非常頭痛。
事情會怎樣發展，有待觀察。
至於執法部門是否有能力破解犯罪集團所使用的電子錢包，如果有，又如何影響比特幣的吸引力以及幣圈的生態環境，這些高科技問題，不要問 Auntie。可以肯定的是，錢志敏所創下的 50 億英鎊（被凍結的比特幣價值）記錄剛剛被破，最新一宗被西方世界執法部門破獲的華人使用比特幣洗黑錢案件，被凍結的比特幣數量（127,271 枚）和價值達（105 億英鎊）是「錢志敏案」的雙倍。正所謂：一山還有一山高，福建幫果然厲害！集團主腦是陳志，生於福建，在香港擁有物業，也是上市公司董事，即是香港可能被捲入洗黑錢活動中，特區政府稍後會收到來自美國和英國的執法部門的指令，要求配合調查或凍結資產。證監會、金管局和警務處有手尾跟，而事件屬於外交層面。欲知詳情，請參考《延伸閱讀》部份所提供的中文和英文傳媒報導，以及相關的美國政府部門所發出的英文新聞稿。
結論：地面上的合法金融活動因為經濟蕭條而萎縮（銀行體系壞帳增加會限制发放貸款的能力於是不利經濟復甦），地底下的非法金融活動（洗黑錢）卻空前活躍和蓬勃，而且規模越來越大，某種程度上反映出制度崩壞和社會秩序失控。金融科技的發展尚未帶來明顯的好處（例如：降低交易成本、便利跨國貿易結算），卻為騙徒提供了發展空間和轉錢管道，某種程度上反映出官府無能。
延伸閱讀／參考資料：
A Tale of Two Bitcoin Billionaires
Oliver Bullough
Coda
8 October 2025
https://www.codastory.com/oligarchy/a-tale-of-two-bitcoin-billionaires/
Excerpt: “Between 2014–2017, Qian（錢志敏）orchestrated a large-scale fraud in China through defrauding over 128,000 victims and went on to store the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets,” the Met said. She fled to the U.K., where she was arrested last year, and her devices containing the keys to access her 61,000 bitcoins were seized.
There is a little bit of an asterisk next to the size of the seizure, however, since the bitcoins weren’t worth nearly as much when she bought them with stolen money as they are now. At the end of 2018, the year when the inquiry into her crime was launched, her bitcoins were worth around $228.5 million. That is obviously still by any standards a lot to steal but the cryptocurrency has had a wild ride since then, and her haul is now worth $7.24 billion and counting.
Qian had promised to triple the investments of the people she defrauded, but she actually increased them thirty-fold by stealing the cash and sticking it in bitcoin.
This episode raises some very interesting issues. What happens to the money? Obviously, her victims should get their money back, but what return should they get: just a standard interest rate, which is better than the nothing they have at the moment; the 300 percent she promised them, which would in ordinary times be awesome; or a proportionate share of this incredibly successful crypto-investment? If I was in the U.K. government, I would be arguing for the first option, but if I was in the Chinese government, I’d be aiming for the last.
Western law enforcement agencies normally struggle to get any kind of cooperation from their Chinese counterparts, but this case appears to be an exception. “Through a meticulous investigation and unprecedented cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, we were able to obtain compelling evidence of the criminal origins of the cryptoassets,” stated Will Lyne, head of the Met’s Economic and Cybercrime Command, which is something I have never heard a senior copper say before.
Could this be the prelude to an unprecedented thawing in relations between the U.K. and China, and the dawning of a new appreciation, nay a respect, for the rule of law in Beijing? Or could it just be that Xi Jinping’s people want a chunk of that $7.24 billion? The jury’s out. And it will remain out until those pesky jurors learn to do what they’re bloody well told.
Qian travelled to the U.K. with a passport issued by the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis (聖基茨和尼維斯), which she applied for under the false name of Yadi Zhang. St Kitts pioneered the whole “citizenship by investment” idea in partnership with Henley & Partners, and has done very well from it, as is abundantly obvious if you visit this extremely beautiful country. It may, however, be time for the rest of the world to start wondering why we are quite so happy to offer its “citizens” visa-free travel if this is the kind of person it sells passports to.
Another citizen of St Kitts and Nevis (聖基茨和尼維斯), is the blockchain billionaire Justin Sun (孫宇晨), who in August became the first Kittitian to sort of go into space. He travelled just beyond the official boundary on one of Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard rockets, which are so ludicrously appropriate in their phallicness that each trip is almost performance art.
The contrast between Sun’s fate and that of Qian couldn’t be more striking. The former, however shady his business dealings, gets to dine at the White House, while the latter is scheduled to be sentenced in a British court next month. If only Qian had invested in Trump’s meme coin?
（推介原因：Oliver Bullough 是擅長調查報導的外國記者，專寫金融罪案，擁有英國和加拿大雙重國籍。他的文章和著作讓你明白金融罪案跟政治經濟、歷史文化和大國角力之間的複雜關係，讓讀者看見來龍去脈。這是 Oliver Bullough 對錢志敏案的評論，重點在於那些已經轉化成比特幣的犯罪收入該如何處理。應該轉換成現金退還給非法集資騙局的受害者，還是由中英兩國依照某個比例瓜分？換言之，中英關係再添談判籌碼。中英關係到底有幾多個談判籌碼？自己想。這篇文章也提及錢志敏進入英國所用的 St Kitts and Nevis (聖基茨和尼維斯) 護照源於該島國在 Henley & Partners 的協助下設計的投資移民計劃。Henley & Partners 正是前文《富豪逃離英國？》裡面提及的那間移民顧問公司。 ）
Oliver Bullough
https://www.codastory.com/author/oliverbullough/
The Five Billion Pound Bitcoin Woman - Investor Vulnerability in the Age
of Crypto and China’s Battle Against Financial Fraud
The Asian Crime
Century briefing 135
Martin Purbrick
Oct 12, 2025
Excerpt: The conviction of Ms. Qian Zhimin (錢志敏) in Southwark Crown Court in September of charges relating to 61,000 Bitcoin now worth £5.5 billion raises questions regarding the original fraud that she committed in China as well as the victims of her crimes.
Ms. Qian was convicted of charges relating to acquiring criminal property, namely crypto-currency, and possessing criminal property, namely crypto-currency, under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002), which were purchased with the proceeds of large scale fraud that she committed in China from 2014 to 2017 that led to over 128,000 victims defrauded. She fled from China and in September 2018 entered the UK where she started to launder the proceeds of the crimes in the UK, leading to her arrest in April 2024. Ms. Qian pleaded guilty to the charges but has not yet been sentenced, which will take place in November.
The case has caused widespread news media coverage because of the extraordinary growth of the original proceeds of the frauds after being invested in Bitcoin to reach a value of GBP 5.5 billion. However, the case raises questions regarding how the unlikely looking criminal Ms. Qian could commit widespread fraud in China and what rights the victims have to any of the proceeds.
Anatomy of a Ponzi Scheme - The Tianjin Blue Sky Grid Electronic Technology Co. Lt（天津藍天格銳電子科技有限公司）
Qian Zhimin reportedly has a history of fraud in China. In December 2014, a court in Hefei City in Anhui Province found that Qian and others had organised a pyramid scheme called ‘UBS International Group (Hong Kong)” that had organised online promotions, lectures and field trips to attract members who had to pay a fee of 2,800 yuan. Qian was then known as ‘Li Xia’, and appointed as the chairperson of UBS International Group that was registered in Hong Kong and had its head office in Hefei City. The company claimed to sell Camellia Oil and offered investment products related to this – Members could purchase and sell Camellia Oil products at up to a 60% discount. In November 2013, the authorities took action against UBS International Group and convicted several leaders of the group but Qian Zhimin escaped.
In 2014, Tianjin Blue Sky Grid Electronic Technology Co. Ltd.（天津藍天格銳電子科技有限公司）was established in Tianjin as a provider of electronic products and internet services and became the vehicle for illegal fundraising and fraud by Qian Zhimin.
Ren Jiangtao was the legal representative and sole shareholder of the company in China, and reported to be the front person for Qian Zhimin. The company was also registered with Companies House in the UK in August 2015, with Ren Jiangtao as the sole company director, and struck off in January 2017.
The company moved on to introduce wealth management products claiming that these were zero risk with high returns (it is not unusual in China for companies to undertake a completely different business from that which they were established for) and is reported to have illegally raised 43.5 billion yuan (around £4.5 billion) in investments from over 100,000 victims.
The sales slogan of Tianjin Blue Sky Grid Electronic Technology Co. Ltd at promotional events and on social media was “Give Grid three years of your time and Grid will give you three years of wealth” （你給格銳三年時間，格銳給你三世富貴）.
The company reportedly launched ten financial products focussed on Bitcoin investment and smart retirement solutions, with investment periods of six to thirty months, and advertised rates of returns from 100% to 300% to investors who were mostly aged between 50 to 75.
Despite the police in the UK seizing £5.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from Qian Zhimin, none of this has been used to reimburse victims of the original frauds in China. In January 2023, the authorities in Tianjin issued a notice calling for victims to register and provide details of the amount that they invested with Tianjin Blue Sky Grid Electronic Technology Co. Ltd and how much they lost. The aim of the authorities is to determine how many victims lost how much and from that initiate a fund recovery process.
In 2024, the Metropolitan police reportedly received a request from Chinese authorities regarding the arrangement for the seized 61,000 bitcoins, indicating that they are interested to recover funds for the victims. The UK and China have a treaty covering Mutual Legal Assistance that entered into force in 2016 and includes provision that “The Requested Party in possession of confiscated assets may, to the extent permitted by its laws, return those assets or the proceeds from the sale of such assets to the Requesting Party or share those assets or the proceeds from the sale of such assets with the Requesting Party.” The legal mechanism clearly exists for the Chinese authorities to apply to the UK authorities to return funds confiscated from Qian Zhimin as these have already been established to be the proceeds of crime in the charges against her.
（推介原因：這篇文章詳述錢志敏的職業騙徒生涯，並且指出中英兩國之間存在法律機制處理被執法部門所沒有的犯罪收入或資產，是執法者的角度。作者 Martin Purbrick 是老一輩的前皇家香港警察，曾任職九七前的政治部 Special Branch，刑事情報科 the Criminal Intelligence Bureau 及商業罪案調查科 the Commercial Crime Bureau。居港三十年，學過廣東話。離開警隊後曾任職香港賽馬會，職位為 Director of Security & Integrity for the Hong Kong Jockey Club，現居蘇格蘭。 ）
About Martin Purbrick
https://www.martinpurbrick.com/about-martin
太子集團陳志調查
關聯公司擁市值 30 億尖沙咀商廈 經營證券保險
撰文：李穎霖 勞顯亮 周偉強
香港 01（2025-10-17）
https://www.hk01.com/article/60286324?utm_source=01articlecopy&utm_medium=referral
節錄：直接註冊七間公司 柬埔寨護照登記
1987 年在中國福建省出生的陳志，目前擁有柬埔寨、瓦努亞圖護照。他在柬埔寨經營「太子集團」，從事電訊詐騙、網上賭場、人口販賣，10 月 8 日遭美國司法部起訴，10 月 14 日美國財政部亦制裁「太子集團跨國犯罪組織」下的多名人士和相關公司。陳志以柬埔寨護照登記，姓名「CHEN Zhi」，在香港直接開設多間公司（詳見列表），包括「太子集團控股有限公司」（Prince Group Holdings Limited），他是唯一董事，股東是太子系英屬處女島（BVI）註冊公司。這間公司亦是美國財政部制裁名單之中。
Bitcoin
worth $14bn seized in US-UK crackdown on alleged scammers
BBC
Lauren
Turner and Osmond Chia
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70jw436n0yo
Excerpt: The US government has seized more than $14bn (£10.5bn) in bitcoin and charged the founder of a Cambodian business empire, the Prince Group（太子集團）, with allegedly masterminding a massive cryptocurrency scam, which involved forced labour camps.
UK and Cambodian national Chen Zhi（陳志）was charged on Tuesday in New York for allegedly engaging in a wire-fraud conspiracy and money laundering scheme. Mr Chen's businesses were also sanctioned by the US and the UK as part of a joint operation. The UK government says it has frozen assets owned by his network, including 19 properties in London - one of which is worth nearly £100m ($133m).
US prosecutors said it was one the biggest financial takedowns in history and the largest ever seizure of bitcoin, with approximately 127,271 bitcoin being held by US government.
Mr Chen, who remains at large, is accused of being the mastermind behind a "sprawling cyber-fraud empire" operating under his multi-national company, the Prince Group, said the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Cambodia-based group's website says its businesses include property development, and financial and consumer services. But the DOJ alleges that it runs one of Asia's largest transnational criminal organisations.
Unwitting
victims were contacted online and convinced to transfer cryptocurrency based on
false promises that the funds would be invested and generate profits, the DOJ
said.
Chairman
of Prince Group Indicted for Operating Cambodian Forced Labor Scam Compounds
Engaged in Cryptocurrency Fraud Schemes
US
Department of Justice
Press
Release
October
14, 2025
Department
of Justice Files Largest Ever Forfeiture Action Against Approximately $15B in
Bitcoin Currently in U.S. Custody
An indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging Cambodian national Chen Zhi（陳志）, also known as Vincent, 37, the founder and chairman of Prince Holding Group (Prince Group太子集團), a multinational business conglomerate based in Cambodia, with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for directing Prince Group’s operation of forced-labor scam compounds across Cambodia. Individuals held against their will in the compounds engaged in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, known as “pig butchering” scams, that stole billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world. The defendant is at large.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department’s National Security Division also filed today a civil forfeiture complaint against approximately 127,271 Bitcoin, currently worth approximately $15 billion, that are proceeds and instrumentalities of the defendant’s fraud and money laundering schemes, and were previously stored in unhosted cryptocurrency wallets whose private keys the defendant had in his possession. Those funds (the Defendant Cryptocurrency) are presently in the custody of the U.S. government. The complaint is the largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice.
In furtherance of these schemes, the defendant and a close network of Prince Group’s top executives used their political influence in multiple foreign countries to protect their criminal enterprise and paid bribes to public officials to avoid disruption by law enforcement. They subsequently laundered the proceeds of the fraudulent schemes through professional money laundering operations and through Prince Group’s own network of ostensibly legal business enterprises, including its online gambling and cryptocurrency mining operations.
At the defendant’s direction, Prince Group associates used sophisticated cryptocurrency laundering techniques to obscure the source of fraudulent Prince Group profits, including “spraying” and “funneling” techniques in which large volumes of cryptocurrency were repeatedly disaggregated across scores of virtual currency addresses and then re-consolidated into fewer addresses to obscure the source of the funds. Some of these criminal proceeds were ultimately held in wallets at cryptocurrency exchanges or exchanged for traditional currency and stored in traditional bank accounts. Other criminal proceeds included the Defendant Cryptocurrency, which was stored in unhosted cryptocurrency wallets whose private keys the defendant personally held. The defendant maintained diagrams recording the process by which some of the Defendant Cryptocurrency was laundered. The defendant boasted to others of Prince Group’s mining businesses that “the profit is considerable because there is no cost” — that is, unlike legitimate enterprises, the operating capital for the cryptocurrency mining businesses comprised money stolen from Prince Group’s many victims.
The defendant and his co-conspirators subsequently used some of the criminal proceeds for luxury travel and entertainment and to make extravagant purchases such as watches, yachts, private jets, vacation homes, high-end collectables, and rare artwork, including a Picasso painting purchased through an auction house in New York City.
If convicted, the defendant faces
a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.
U.S. and
U.K. Take Largest Action Ever Targeting Cybercriminal Networks in Southeast
Asia
US Department
of the Treasury
Press Release
(October 14, 2025)
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0278
Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in close coordination with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), took complementary actions against criminal networks responsible for targeting citizens of the United States and other allied nations through online scams and the laundering of stolen funds.
OFAC has imposed sweeping sanctions on 146 targets within the Prince Group （太子集團）Transnational Criminal Organization (Prince Group TCO), a Cambodia-based network led by Cambodian national Chen Zhi （陳志）that operates a transnational criminal empire through online investment scams targeting Americans and others worldwide. In addition, FinCEN finalized a rule under section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act to sever the Cambodia-based financial services conglomerate, Huione Group, from the U.S. financial system. For years, Huione Group has laundered proceeds of virtual currency scams and heists on behalf of malicious cyber actors.
“The rapid rise of transnational fraud has cost American citizens billions of dollars, with life savings wiped out in minutes,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury is taking action to protect Americans by cracking down on foreign scammers. Working in close coordination with federal law enforcement and international partners like the United Kingdom, Treasury will continue to lead efforts to safeguard Americans from predatory criminals.”
CYBERFRAUD EMPIRE ENGANGES IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING, TORTURE, SEXTORTION, AND MONEY LAUNDERING
Chen Zhi is a 38-year-old Chinese émigré who has since renounced his Chinese citizenship and has built a business empire in Cambodia through the Prince Group TCO. Chen Zhi （陳志）, via the Prince Group TCO（太子集團）, comingles illicit revenues with the legitimate Cambodian economy, laundering these ill-gotten gains through a complicated network of over 100 shell and holding companies all around the world. Under Chen Zhi’s leadership, the criminal revenues generated by the Prince Group TCO’s have been instrumental in supporting its ostensibly legitimate business ventures, most of which operate through entities under the control of Prince Group TCO, including Prince Holding Group, Prince Bank Plc. (Prince Bank), and Prince Huan Yu Real Estate Cambodia Group Co. Ltd.
Prince Group TCO profits from a litany of transnational crimes including sextortion—a type of fraud involving the solicitation for eventual blackmail of sexually explicit materials, often from minors—money laundering, various frauds and rackets, corruption, illegal online gambling, and the industrial-scale trafficking, torture, and extortion of enslaved workers in furtherance of the operation of at least ten scam compounds in Cambodia.
相關的文章：
騙徒版購房通
2025 年 10 月 3 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post.html
節錄：第一步：騙徒首先向受害者籌集資金（詐騙）。Case 1 的中國騙徒（錢志敏）透過推銷理財產品非法集資，然後用比特幣 (Bitcoin) 洗黑錢，牽涉金額逾 50 億英鎊，成為全球歷來最大宗涉及比特幣的案件。第二步：籌集的資金（犯罪收入）透過銀行系統以外的管道（例如：比特幣）跨國轉移，然後購買外國物業（洗黑錢）。Case 1 的中國騙徒用假身份和買來的護照（注意：真假有待查證）入境英國，在他人的協助下購買外國物業洗黑錢。
富豪逃離英國？
2025 年 10 月 11 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post_11.html
節錄：這個博客的讀者應該記得，幾個月前，有一份來自英語世界的調查報告，聲稱由於工黨政府上台之後對有錢人加稅，令百萬富翁紛紛逃離英國。發表那份調查報告的機構叫 Henley & Partners，是移民顧問公司，在香港有辦事處。那份調查報告的重點被香港的中文財經媒體廣泛轉發。在網上世界，也有幾位 KOL 發表評論或抽水（例如：陶傑、蕭若元），結論是工黨政府害死英國，不走就笨。
Oliver Bullough (Part 1)
2025 年 9 月 3 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/09/oliver-bullough-part-1.html
Oliver Bullough (Part 2)
2025 年 9 月 10 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/09/oliver-bullough-part-2.html
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