Chinese woman is convicted of billion-dollar bitcoin fraud

A Chinese woman was sentenced today in London to 11 years and 8 months in prison for money laundering, following a financial pyramid scheme in her country that affected 128,000 people and resulted in the seizure of a record 61,000 bitcoins. The accused, Zhimin Qian, 47, nicknamed the “wealth queen”, converted part of the funds obtained from fraud, committed between 2014 and 2017, into cryptocurrencies before moving to the United Kingdom, where she tried to launder the money.

The woman, with an evasive personality and driven by dreams of greatness, orchestrated a fraud using a Ponzi scheme (which pays investors with funds from new participants) through her company in Tianjin (northeast China). The defendant, however, was not tried in the United Kingdom for these crimes, but rather for possession and transfer of illegally obtained assets, specifically bitcoins, a crime for which she pleaded guilty.

More than 61 thousand bitcoins (equivalent to more than 6 billion dollars or 31.6 billion reais at current exchange rates) were seized in this case, which represented “the largest confirmed seizure of illegally obtained goods in Europe”, according to the police. Qian promised his victims returns of up to 300%, often targeting people with little financial knowledge, recruited through referrals, social media and public appearances.