Chinese state-linked criminal gangs are reportedly using international students in the United Kingdom to launder hundreds of millions of pounds, according to research by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). The report, highlighted in Times UK, suggests that the Chinese state provides “tacit support” for these gangs, a relationship described as “mutually beneficial.”
The gangs allegedly collect cash from street-level drug dealers and channel it through networks of money mules, including Chinese students, depositing smaller sums into bank accounts controlled by the criminal organizations. Chinese authorities restrict citizens from transferring more than around £38,000 overseas annually, ostensibly for purposes like studying or travel. Criminal groups exploit these limits by exchanging British pounds for Chinese yuan through these student intermediaries, charging fees as high as 30 percent while often offering the laundering service free to local criminals, undercutting rival operations.
Britain is seen as a key market for such operations due to its large population of Chinese students—almost 150,000 in the 2023–24 academic year—making them the second-largest group of overseas students in the country. Phil Brickell, a Labour MP on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Times UK that Chinese authorities were “responsible for fuelling the rise of these professional money launderers here in the UK,” claiming that financiers have honed their skills by targeting students and businesspeople before assisting serious crime gangs.
Kathryn Westmore, a senior research fellow at Rusi, said prosecutions have so far uncovered networks moving tens of millions of pounds, but the actual scale is likely far higher, with hundreds of millions of pounds laundered through such schemes. Recent cases include a £55 million money-laundering ring led by Qiji Wang in Manchester, which sold British pounds to students to bypass currency limits, and a Stirling University student sentenced for laundering £160,000 through multiple bank accounts. Other schemes totaling £20 million were linked to drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, and tax evasion.
The National Crime Agency has designated China a “priority jurisdiction” for money laundering on behalf of organized crime, warning that the threat continues to grow. The UK government has been approached for comment, while law enforcement continues to investigate the extent of the networks.
