A Ponzi scheme, secret diary and property scouting: What led to a Chinese ‘cryptoqueen’ being sentenced to 11 years’ prison by UK courts

On Tuesday, a British court handed 47-year-old Zhimin Qian a prison sentence of more than 11 years after it found her guilty of scamming 1,28,000 people in China. Qian, dubbed the ‘cryptoqueen’ for owning Bitcoin worth $6.6 billion in hard drives, floated a Ponzi scheme, Lantian Gerui, or Bluesky Greet, in China.

The scheme targeted Chinese middle-aged and senior citizens offering over 200 per cent returns, and enticing the demographic through large-scale events including at the Great Hall of the People, the federal legislature of China, as well as endorsements from members of Mao Zedong’s family, the BBC reported.

The company offered incentives for adding new members apart from drip feeding returns in initial phases to bolster their confidence in the Ponzi scheme and coax them to invest more.

Rise of the ‘cryptoqueen’

Qian’s moniker of ‘cryptoqueen’ is underlined by more quirky habits such as maintaining a diary in which she listed her goals — from owning a castle to meeting Swedish royalty. In between the pages of her diary, Qian also reportedly wrote her intent to return her investors’ money once Bitcoin hit the $50,000 mark. To be sure, the flagship cryptocurrency has crossed that mark long since, and is priced at $103,439.28 apiece at 11:38 am on Wednesday.

The ‘cryptoqueen’ wrote sentimental poems in her diary and as part of her company’s marketing campaign, imbued with themes such as nationalism and caring for the elderly, her company’s target group.

To hook investors on to the scheme, periodic returns on investment were paid from the money that was pooled from them, instead of crypto-linked returns, the BBC reported.

As Chinese authorities started probing Qian, she moved to London on a false passport. She rented a mansion in Hampstead Heath at 17,000 pounds a month and assumed the identity of a diamond heiress and antique investor, gradually liquidating her Bitcoin holdings to pay for her upscale lifestyle. Her assistant was tasked with converting these holdings to buy property. It was in pursuit of her dreams of buying property in the exclusive neighbourhood of Totteridge Common that Qian’s elaborate hoax came undone, as the police started looking into the source of her income.

Repatriation of funds

The ‘cryptoqueen’, who dreamt of becoming the queen of Liberland, a microstate on the Croatia-Serbian border that remained unrecognised, was soon found to be in possession of the biggest haul of cryptocurrency by British authorities at over 50 billion pounds, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.