'Goddess of wealth' spent 20 hours a day in bed at helm of £5bn crypto scam

Zhimin Qian, jailed for 12 years, was asleep when found by police

- Poppy Sebag-Montefiore

Hanging on a wall in an art gallery in a Georgian townhouse on London's Bedford Square is a self-portrait by Duan Jianyu, a Chinese contemporary artist. It is a homage to the work of the French neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but rather than silky curtains and peacock feathers, Duan is surrounded by chicken nuggets and KFC cartons.

It is inspired, she tells me, by a trend in China, where young people seclude themselves, choosing to stay at home, order takeaways and livestream their reclusive lives to online “fans”. There is something of Duan’s painting in the revelations about the private life of Zhimin Qian, the Chinese woman sentenced last week to 11 years and eight months for money laundering, in what is believed to be the world’s largest cryptocurrency seizure.

By the time the Metropolitan police raided Qian’s £5m rented Hampstead mansion in 2018, the international fugitive had become a recluse. Her live-in assistant, Jian Wen, who was convicted last year of money laundering and sentenced to six years in prison, claimed Qian would spend up to 20 hours a day in bed on her laptop – gaming, shopping and exchanging bitcoin. She was found in bed when police finally arrested her last year, at an Airbnb in York. She was living the life she is reported to have promised her victims: that they could “get rich while lying down”.

Back in China, Qian had been the charismatic leader of Tianjin Lantian Gerui, a company that claimed to mine bitcoin – promising returns of up to 300% – and to be developing the next generation of smart technology health products. Its slogan: “Give three years of investment, and get three generations of wealth.”