Qian Zhimin, the ‘cryptoqueen’ fraudster who fled China for London luxury

SINGAPORE: Qian Zhimin wanted a glamorous lifestyle. She travelled across Europe, yearned to be acquainted with royalty and even dreamed of becoming the ruler of a self-proclaimed micronation.

After cheating thousands out of their life savings, she converted her ill-gotten gains into cryptocurrency and, for years, evaded capture across Europe under false identities.

But her double life came crashing down in 2024 when police traced digital clues that led them straight to her home in the northern English city of York.

On Tuesday (Nov 11), a UK court sentenced the 47-year-old Chinese national to 11 years and eight months in jail for money laundering.

Here’s how Qian spun her web of lies, how she came to possess 61,000 bitcoins – currently worth £5 billion (US$6.6 billion) – and how the law finally caught up with her.

INVESTMENT FRAUD

Qian’s criminal empire began in China, where she and several Chinese accomplices launched a Ponzi scheme through a company called Lantian Gerui in 2014. Investors were promised returns of up to 300 per cent.

Between 2014 and 2017, an estimated 128,000 people handed over £4.6 billion, comprising life savings and pensions.

According to court documents, while some funds were returned to maintain the facade, a sizeable amount was siphoned off by Qian and her co-conspirators, many of whom have been prosecuted and convicted in China. She converted around £20.2 million of the funds into cash, jewellery and bitcoin.

In 2014, using the name of one of her associates, Qian opened an account at the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange in China and transferred investor funds into that account in exchange for bitcoin. Additional investor monies were used to buy bitcoin in over-the-counter transactions.

By the time the Chinese police began investigating, more than 70,000 bitcoins had been transferred into a cryptocurrency wallet on a laptop.