A London court sentenced 47-year-old Qian Zhimin to 11 years and 8 months in prison for money laundering after she fled China and hid bitcoins worth about £5 billion in her mansion in Hampstead. This was reported by BBC, writes UNN.
Details
According to the police, the woman bought cryptocurrency with funds stolen from over 100,000 Chinese pensioners who invested in her company under the guise of mining and high-tech health products.
If we can put all the evidence together, we hope the UK government, the Crown Prosecution Service and the High Court will show compassion
Qian arrived in the UK in 2017 on a forged passport, rented an expensive mansion, and posed as an antique heiress, using assistants to convert cryptocurrency into money and real estate. Police found tens of thousands of bitcoins, which is considered the largest cryptocurrency seizure in UK history.
She founded the company in China only four years ago, but the fraud affected over 120,000 people, and new investors' money was used to pay current ones, creating a classic pyramid scheme.
The more information we got about her involvement… the more obvious it became that, yes, she is very intelligent, she is very sociable, very manipulative, capable of convincing many people
During the trial, Qian initially denied the charges, but later pleaded guilty to illegally acquiring and possessing cryptocurrency. Her arrest concluded a large-scale international scam and served as a warning to crypto entrepreneurs operating outside the law.