"Goddess of Wealth" caught in the law
Having lived a lavish life and been known as the "goddess of Wealth", Chinese businesswoman Qian Z termin is facing a long-term prison sentence.
The case was exposed after British police made the largest seizure of cryptocurrency in the country's history, with Bitcoin worth more than $6 billion.
The 47-year-old businesswoman, also known as Zhang Yadi, defrauded more than 128,000 victims through a fraud plot in China from 2014 to 2017. She later stored the illegally collected funds as Bitcoin assets and played a leading role in the fraud.
After fleeing China in 2018 with fake documents, Qian Z terminated into a UK investigation and began investigating how to launder the proceeds. Police and prosecutors said she had sought to legalize the money through the purchase of real estate, including a £23 million villa (about $30 million) in London.
Qian Z terminated his guilty plea for collecting and owning criminal property on September 29. She will be sentenced after a two-day trial, starting on 10 November at Southwark Crown Court in London, and faces a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
A Malaysian accomplice, Ling Seng Hok, 47 years old, has also admitted to money laundering in this court and is also awaiting sentencing. Previously, another accomplice, Jian Wen, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison last year for his role in the case, after being found to hold Bitcoin wallets worth more than $2 billion.
Billion-dollar Ponzi plan and the collapse of the century
Qian Z termin's fraud is believed to be a sophisticated Ponzi plan (taking money from the former to pay the former). After converting most of the victim's money into Bitcoin, she began a money laundering journey in the UK.
The supervision of accomplice Ling led to the police arresting Qian Z termin in April 2024, seizing 11 million pounds in cash, gold and cryptocurrency.
Before the arrest, London police had made the largest seizure of cryptocurrency in history: More than 61,000 bit bit bit bitons. At the time she bought it (around 2018), Bitcoin was trading at around $3,600. But with Bitcoin currently fluctuating around $100,000, the value of the seized Bitcoin has skyrocketed to more than $6 billion.
The case is described as the largest legal case of its type in terms of value, involving an individual, not a corporation. Lawyers representing the victims said that many of their customers have suffered huge personal losses, affecting their lives, marriages and families.
According to lawyer Jackson Ng, the defendant organized public events, claiming to have government support, to attract and take advantage of experienced non-investors.
A Chinese couple, an office worker in their 40s, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement savings and gave their daughter after attending a presentation in 2016. Promised profits stopped being paid in 2017. Their daughter has now cut off all contact with them.
Details of a compensation plan proposed by the UK government are still being debated in the London Supreme Court. According to sources, there were about 1,300 victims who were accused of reporting.
