London (AFP) \u2013 She lived a life of luxury that earned her the nickname “goddess of wealth”, but Chinese businesswoman Zhimin Qian now faces a long jail sentence after police made the UK’s largest-ever cryptocurrency seizure of Bitcoin worth over $6 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 47-year-old, who used the alias Yadi Zhang, defrauded more than 128,000 victims through a scheme in China from 2014-17 and stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qian played a leading role in the scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After fleeing China in 2018 using false documents, she came to the UK where she attempted to launder the proceeds, according to police and prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She faces up to 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chinese national, who pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property on September 29, will be sentenced after a two-day hearing on Monday and Tuesday at London’s Southwark Crown Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Malaysian accomplice, Seng Hok Ling, also 47, admitted to money laundering at the same court earlier and is also due to be sentenced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another accomplice, Jian Wen, was jailed for six years and eight months over her role in the scheme last year after being found with Bitcoin wallets worth over $2 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qian is believed to have coordinated a Ponzi scheme, which pays out to investors using funds from new entrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After converting a large portion of her victims’ money into Bitcoin, she set about laundering the funds in the UK through property purchases including a \u00a323-million ($30-million) London mansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police surveillance of Qian’s co-defendant Ling led to her arrest in April 2024, and cash, gold and cryptocurrencies totalling \u00a311 million were seized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the arrest, London police made what they believe to be the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history: more than 61,000 Bitcoins, worth over $6 billion at current rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
William Glover of law firm Fieldfisher told AFP the case was “possibly the largest legal case of its kind in terms of value involving an individual and not a corporate”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of his clients had suffered enormous personal losses that had affected their lives, marriages and families, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Jackson Ng of Duan & Duan, who is representing other investors, the defendant organised public events while claiming to have government support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People who were not seasoned investors and were not “going to check everything” were drawn in and exploited, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Chinese couple, office workers in their 40s, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars they had saved for their retirement and their daughter, after attending a presentation in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The promised return on their investment stopped being paid out in 2017. Their daughter has now broken off all contact with them, Ng said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fuelled by growing interest, Bitcoin, which was trading at around $3,600 at the end of 2018, is currently hovering around $100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Details of a compensation scheme proposed by the British authorities are still being thrashed out in London’s High Court in civil proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 1,300 alleged victims have come forward, according to sources close to the case.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London (AFP) \u2013 She lived a life of luxury that earned her the nickname “goddess of wealth”, but Chinese businesswoman Zhimin Qian now faces a long jail sentence after police made the UK’s largest-ever cryptocurrency seizure of Bitcoin worth over $6 billion. The 47-year-old, who used the alias Yadi Zhang, defrauded more than 128,000 victims […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,3,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-business","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}