$BTC The Chinese citizen Qiming Qian, also known as Yadi Chang, was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in prison by the Southwark Crown Court for running one of the largest investment frauds in China's history, where more than 120,000 elderly investors were deceived.
💥 Her empire, Lantian Jierui, lured victims with promises of wealth from cryptocurrency mining and health tech projects — but prosecutors revealed it was nothing more than a massive pyramid scheme.
🏠 Chian fled China in 2017 using a fake passport and lived a lavish life in London, where she rented a mansion in Hampstead for $21,000 a month until her arrest in April 2024. Police seized 61,000 bitcoins — which are now worth about $6.4 billion — in what is called the largest cryptocurrency seizure ever.
🧊 Her British partner, Sing Hok Ling, received 4 years and 11 months, while Jian Wen, her former assistant, was imprisoned last year for laundering her wealth.
💬 Chian's diaries revealed strange ambitions — from buying a castle in Sweden to becoming the 'Queen of Liberland,' a small country where Tron founder Justin Sun is now the Prime Minister.
⚖️ The seizure of bitcoin led to a struggle between the UK and China over who owns it — the victim investors or the British state, which may retain part of it under an asset recovery stimulus program.
💭 As one cryptocurrency analyst noted:
> 'This could represent the birth of the first bitcoin reserve in the UK — born from fraud, reborn as a financial force.'
🧩 What do you think — should the UK return the bitcoin to the victims, or keep it as a national digital currency reserve? 🇬🇧💸💬
