• Chinese businesswoman Qian has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after masterminding a Ponzi scheme that deceived thousands of investors across multiple countries. 
• The British authorities managed to seize over 61,000 Bitcoins after tracing Qian’s luxury purchases. 

Qian, a Chinese businesswoman and the mastermind behind a major Ponzi scheme, has been charged with 14 years imprisonment and asset seizure of about $6 billion worth of Bitcoin. According to reports, the mastermind she ran managed to deceive thousands of investors with false promises of extraordinary profits.

While her Ponzi scheme operated, she managed to build a fraudulent network that stretched across several countries of the world, but the Ponzi scheme mostly focused on elderly individuals and other inexperienced investors. She convinced them to invest their savings with the hope of earning huge financial returns. However, behind the scenes, Qian and her team were simply just making money from new investors to pay older ones.

Details on the Ponzi Scheme Operation

The investigation on the Ponzi scheme and Qian has been going on for a while now. Because in 2017, the Chinese authorities tried to close in on the Ponzi scheme operation, but Qian fled the country using fake identification documents. From China, she managed to escape to the United Kingdom, where she attempted to hide her fortune by converting all the stolen funds into Bitcoin. 

Reports revealed that in addition to this, she also tried to integrate the laundered money into the U.K. economy by purchasing expensive real estate and living a life of luxury. During her time in the U.K., she lived under different aliases, including “Yadi Zhang,” and soon became known as the “goddess of wealth” among her followers, who believed in her investment knowledge.

However, it wasn’t long before the British authorities uncovered the scale of the deception she ran. They got solid information through detailed surveillance and also tracing her finances. Investigators discovered that Qian moved billions in stolen funds into Bitcoin in an effort to hide the origins of the money. After years of pursuit, the police finally caught up with her and carried out a raid that helped them recover cash, gold, and crypto linked to her crimes.

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It was through this investigation that they managed to recover more than 61,000 Bitcoins worth over $6 billion at the time, marking the largest cryptocurrency recovery in British history. This massive discovery became the core evidence that tied Qian to the fraud and money laundering charges she now faces.

So far, one of her partners, Jian Wen, was caught and sentenced to over six years in prison after the police also connected her to Bitcoin wallets valued at billions of dollars. The arrests and subsequent seizures revealed how deeply connected the group’s financial network was.

Her upcoming sentencing at Southwark Crown Court is expected to mark the end of an international case that has lasted for nearly a decade and left thousands of victims bankrupt. Qian could face up to 14 years behind bars if the court decides to give her the maximum punishment.

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