On Tuesday, the most recent woman to earn the nickname “Crypto Queen” from the media received an 11-year sentence associated with a Ponzi scheme she previously ran in China in the 2010s. Zhimin Qian is said to have converted much of the proceeds from the scheme into bitcoin when the cryptocurrency was only worth a few thousand dollars as she fled the country and eventually ended up in the United Kingdom.

According to Reuters , Qian used her company Lantian Gerui to operate her Ponzi scheme from around 2014 to 2017, promising investors high returns through high-tech health products and cryptocurrency mining operations. The scheme is said to have targeted over 128,000 people across China, particularly middle-aged and elderly individuals, sometimes through lavish events that encourage

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