Before her jail term was announced, Mr Li told the BBC Qian’s guilty plea offered victims a “glimpse of sunlight”.
The cryptocurrency Qian brought to the UK has multiplied more than 20 times in value since her arrival. Its fate will be decided by a civil “proceeds of crime” case that will start in earnest early next year.
There are thousands of Chinese investors planning to make a claim in this case, say lawyers from two firms representing victims. But this will not be easy, one of them – a Chinese lawyer who asked to remain anonymous – told us. They will need to prove their claim – and in many cases they did not transfer money to Qian’s company directly, but to accounts of local promoters who then passed the cash up the chain.
It is not clear whether the victims, if successful, will receive only their original investment, or an inflated amount which reflects Bitcoin’s subsequent rise in value.
As in other “proceeds of crime” cases, any money left over after this process would normally default to the UK government. The BBC asked the UK Treasury what it plans to do with any remaining money, but it did not respond.
Separately, last month, the CPS said it was considering a compensation scheme for those with no representation in the civil case. We asked the CPS what level of evidence this alternative scheme would require, but it told us it was not able to share any details at this stage.
The toll on Mr Yu – whose wife invested alongside him – has not just been financial, but personal, culminating in divorce and little contact with his son, he told the BBC.
Still, he considers himself relatively lucky. One lawyer we spoke to said many of Qian’s investors were left without money for food or medicine.
Mr Yu knew one such person – from Tianjin, northern China. She died of breast cancer after discharging herself from hospital, unable to afford treatment, he said.
“She was at death’s door, and she knew I could write, so she asked me to write her an elegy if the worst came to the worst.”
Mr Yu says he kept his word and wrote a poem in her memory which he posted online. It ends with the lines:
“Let us be pillars, holding up the sky / Rather than sheep, to be led and misled / To those who survive – strive harder / That we might right this grave injustice.”
