After drawing the attention of Chinese authorities, Qian fled to the U.K. under a false identity. In London, she rented a luxury home for £17,000 ($23,000) a month and tried, unsuccessfully, to purchase multimillion-pound properties in an effort to cash out her crypto fortune.
Investigators later uncovered handwritten notes where Qian described her dream of becoming the “monarch of Liberland,” a self-proclaimed micro-nation between Croatia and Serbia — along with her ambitions of “meeting a duke and royalty.”