A Chinese woman facing a lengthy jail term for her role in a multibillion-dollar bitcoin scam lived in luxury as she evaded the authorities for years, a British court heard on Monday.
Nicknamed the “goddess of wealth,” Qian Zhimin (錢志敏), 47, is accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded about 128,000 people in China between 2014 and 2017, raising billions of dollars, much of which was converted to bitcoin.
Qian was arrested after British authorities seized 61,000 bitcoins (US$6.41 billion at the current exchange rate), believed to be a record in crytocurrency-related crime.
Photo: Metropolitan Police Service via AFP
The Chinese woman, who pleaded guilty to acquiring and possessing criminal property in September, was to be sentenced yesterday and faces up to 14 years in prison.
A Malaysian accomplice, Seng Hok Ling, also 47, admitted to money laundering at the same court and was also to be sentenced yesterday.
However, his case might be adjourned due to a potential misunderstanding over his previous guilty plea, the court was told on Monday.
Dressed in a blouse with floral patterns and her graying hair in a bun, Qian remained impassive as London’s Southwark Crown Court started the sentencing hearings in her case.
Following scrutiny from Chinese authorities, Qian — also known as Zhang Yadi (張雅迪) — fled her home country in 2017 using false documents to enter the UK. The court heard that she evaded British authorities for nearly six years.
She traveled across Europe, staying in fancy hotels and buying expensive jewelry including two watches worth nearly ￡120,000 (US$157,474), the court heard.
With the help of an accomplice called Jian Wen, she rented a lavish London property for about ￡17,000 a month and claimed to run a successful jewelry business.
Qian first drew the attention of British authorities in 2018 when she attempted to buy a London property and suspicions were raised over her bitcoin.
Officers raided the rented London home, where they found laptops containing a bitcoin fortune, but did not immediately grasp the scale of the fraud.
Documents later revealed Qian’s ambitions included a plan to become the monarch of “Liberland,” a self-declared micronation between Croatia and Serbia.
However, police surveillance of Qian’s codefendant Ling led to her arrest in the northern English city of York in April last year. Wen was last year jailed for six years and eight months over her role in the scheme.
Lawyer William Glover, who has represented victims in a civil legal action, said it was “possibly the largest legal case of its kind in terms of value involving an individual and not a corporate.”
Some of his clients had experienced enormous personal losses that affected their lives, marriages and families, he said.
The promised return on their investment stopped being paid out in 2017.
Fueled by growing interest, bitcoin, which was trading at about US$3,600 at the end of 2018, on Monday closed at US$105,996.
Details of a compensation scheme proposed by British authorities are still being thrashed out in London’s High Court in civil proceedings.
About 1,300 alleged victims have come forward, according to sources close to the case.
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
RSS