A Chinese woman who oversaw a $6.5 billion crypto scam has been jailed for 11 years in the UK. Qian Zhimin bought bitcoin using funds stolen from 120,000 Chinese people, mainly pensioners, before fleeing China for a London mansion in 2017.
Cryptocurrency appears to lend itself to scams, with its get-rich-quick ethos and its position outside the regulatory reach of most governments.
Last month, the US government charged another Chinese man with running a fraudulent crypto scheme out of Cambodia, involving the theft of at least $14 billion from people all over the world, while the Bulgarian “Missing Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova, wanted by the FBI for stealing $4.5 billion with a fake cryptocurrency, has not been seen since 2017.