China's fraudulent bitcoin queen is Qian Zhimin

Qian Zhimin profited billions from a pyramid scheme involving bitcoin

After years of evading the law, she was eventually apprehended.

The biggest cryptocurrency seizure ever was celebrated by British police when they took 61,000 bitcoin from Qian Zhimin, a Chinese con artist on the run. The haul, which is currently valued at about £3.2 billion, is the subject of an escalating legal dispute. The chancellor allegedly "earmarked" the majority of the stash "to shore up the government's finances" after the self-described "Goddess of Wealth" was imprisoned for 11 years for money laundering in the fall, according to The Times.

But many of the 128,000 Chinese victims of Qian Zhimin are complaining. According to the Financial Times, they contend that the compensation plan put forth by the UK is insufficient because it does not account for the significant increase in the value of bitcoin, which has more than quadrupled since the scam was discovered. They are also fighting to prevent the British government from profiting. Litigation firms that represent the victims, according to prosecutors, are only attempting "to cash in."

According to the South China Morning Post, Qian Zhimin is seen as a "super-villain" in China, where it is a fittingly messy conclusion to a long-running saga that has garnered significant attention. Her enormous pyramid scheme, which operated from 2014 to 2017, is believed to have defrauded investorsmany of whom were elderlyof over 40 billion yuan (roughly 4.4 billion) by the time Chinese police discovered it. According to The Economist, Qian Zhimin promised returns of up to 300% for investing in Tianjin Blue Sky Grid Electronic Technology, which claimed to provide everything from air purifiers to bitcoin mining. In actuality, the majority of the company's funding came from depositors who, in a classic Ponzi scheme, were rewarded for recruiting new members. The victims, who were enticed to conferences at opulent hotels throughout China, seem to have been captivated by Qian Zhimin. She skillfully exploited the generational grievances of her audience while appealing to their patriotism.

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Start your trial Other than the fact that Qian Zhimin was born in 1978, not much is known about her early life. However, her extravagant plans and remarkable trajectory point to a dishonest personality with fantasies. You can't hold her derring-do accountable. Qian Zhimin smuggled out her bitcoin stash and fled China on a moped to Myanmar when the balloon went up in 2017, according to The Guardian. "Yadi Zhang" was the alias she used to get to Britain. It marked the beginning of an ostentatious seven-year run. In order to help launder the cryptocurrency into cash and real estate, Qian Zhimin hired a "personal assistant" and rented a mansion on the outskirts of Hampstead Heath while pretending to be a wealthy diamond and antiques heiress. Qian Zhimin herself "spent most of her days lying in bed, gaming and online shopping" as she devised audacious plans to gain her independence. She intended to become close to a British duke, purchase a Swedish castle, and establish an international bank. According to the BBC, the most ambitious plan was for her to become queen of Liberland, an unacknowledged microstate on the Croatian-Serbian border that she would govern as a bitcoin fiefdom. She believed this would grant her immunity from prosecution. A set of crown jewels was allocated a budget of £5 million.

Qian Zhimin's London home contained cryptocurrency valued at 67 million.

When police learned that her assistant was attempting to purchase a 24 million London property, the dragnet began to close in. During a raid, laptops and hard drives containing tens of thousands of bitcoin were discovered. In September 2020, Qian Zhimin disappeared the day before her scheduled interview. Police discovered that a Malaysian-born businessman Qian Zhimin had hired as her "butler" had accessed a bitcoin wallet they were keeping an eye on, but it would take four years before she was apprehended, according to The Times. They trailed him to a York residence. Upon Qian Zhimin's arrest, it was discovered that a memory stick "in a secret pocket of her jogging bottoms" held the codes for 67 million bitcoin. She was prepared to flee if given a chance.