The Runaway “Cryptoqueen” Is Now Behind Bars — and Her £5bn Bitcoin Stash Too

 For years, people in China thought they were investing their savings into a futuristic health-tech and crypto venture. More than 100,000 pensioners and ordinary citizens poured their money in, believing it would grow. Instead, police say the woman behind it all, Qian Zhimin, siphoned off the cash and used it to buy cryptocurrency — a stash that has now ballooned into billions.

After slipping out of China and arriving in the UK under a fake passport in 2017, she settled into a luxury Hampstead mansion just steps away from the heath, paying more than £17,000 a month in rent. To turn her Bitcoin into spendable cash, she reinvented herself as a wealthy heiress dealing in antiques and diamonds, even hiring a former takeaway worker as a personal assistant to quietly convert the crypto into property and money.

But the privacy didn’t last. A year later, the Met Police stormed the mansion and uncovered one of the largest single crypto seizures ever recorded. On Tuesday, at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Sally-Ann Hales handed Qian an 11-year-eight-month sentence for money laundering, calling her the driving force behind the entire scheme and saying her actions were fuelled purely by greed.

Victims who spoke to the BBC say they are clinging to the hope that at least some of the recovered Bitcoin will be returned to them. One man, identified only as Mr Yu, said the fraud destroyed his marriage and that the seized crypto is their only chance of seeing any repayment. If claims are not made, the remaining assets would typically pass to the UK government — a possibility that has left many investors uneasy.

The case ends the illusion that Qian had built around herself, but it leaves a massive unanswered question hanging in the air: will the people who lost everything ever see justice in the form of real compensation?

The scale of Qian’s operation fooled people at every level. Investors say the company even managed to host an event inside the Great Hall of the People — the same place where China’s lawmakers meet. For many, that was the stamp of legitimacy. If something happened in that building, how could it possibly be a scam?

Mr Yu, one of the victims, remembers how persuasive the promoters were. In his words, they could convince people that red was white and black was red. The whole thing was wrapped in confidence, status, and showmanship.

Strangely, the woman at the centre of it all barely showed her face. Clients knew her only by nicknames — Huahua, or Little Flower — and most communication came through poetic posts on her blog, giving her an air of mystery. But for the biggest investors, those who put in at least 6 million yuan, she appeared in person. One of them, Mr Li, recalls being dazzled.

He says the select group treated her like a “Goddess of Wealth,” hanging on to her promises that within three years, their families would be rich for generations. Believing her, Mr Li, his wife, and his brother handed over around 10 million yuan in total. Now, all that remains of those dreams is anger, regret, and a wait to see whether any of the seized Bitcoin will ever find its way back to them.

Source - BBC