Australian crypto fraudster blew most of the $123million he stole from investors on ‘sugar babies’

A young Australian crypto fraudster revealed his ‘sugar baby addiction’ led to the unravelling of his $123million ponzi scheme, which landed him a seven-and-a-half year jail sentence.

Canberra-born Stefan He Qin, 24, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December after pleading guilty to securities fraud in New York.

Qin cheated more than 100 investors and used their money to bankroll extravagant parties and pay for a $35,000-a-month penthouse in Lower Manhattan.

In a revealing interview with EST Media days before he was locked up, Qin said he was corrupted by the money and temptations that were so foreign to his humble upbringing. 

‘Long story short because my co-founders left now I was the one who was 100 per cent in control of the entire company and if you’re 21 years old and you’re the only one with access to all these bank accounts that’s a recipe for disaster and that’s essentially what happened,’ he said.

Young Australian crypto fraudster Stefan He Qin revealed his ‘sugar baby addiction’ led to the unravelling of his $123million ponzi scheme

Qin revealed he was suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies throughout school due to bullying, something he believes fuelled his criminal behaviour.

He said there is an underlying ‘insecurity’ with Asian Australian culture to become as successful as possible ‘at all costs’, a trait he kept in the back of his mind throughout his lucrative, criminal career.

The Canberran took a job on a Crypto exchange after ‘falling apart’ in his first year at the University of NSW in 2015, taking a job with OKCoin, which was the largest trading platform for the currency at the time.

Qin quickly became extremely successful trading Bitcoin across American and Asian markets, buying the coin when it was lower on one continent and selling when higher on another.

His system was then purchased by a hedge fund, Virgil Sigma, the company he was working for while commiting securities fraud. 

‘I’d be doing the wrong thing but in the back of my mind I thought: ‘f**k you, I’m more successful than you’,’ he said.

He moved into a three-bedroom Lower-Manhattan penthouse that costs $34,000 per month, admitting he only got an apartment with extra bedrooms to accommodate sugar babies.

Canberra-born Qin, 24, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December after pleading guilty to securities fraud in New York

Canberra-born Qin, 24, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December after pleading guilty to securities fraud in New York

Qin said his girlfriend with whom he lost his virginity cheated on him with someone who earned more money, which led to years of trust and commitment issues.

‘I lost my virginity in 2017 and I was madly in love, but she cheated on me with some guy who was richer than I was,’ he told EST Media. 

‘You have this beautiful girl you think you’re going to spend the rest of your life with and you’re not rich enough for her.

The 24-year-old said he then turned to paying women for companionship, pouring much of his stolen money into the practice. 

‘Honestly, this is so f**ked up to say but the only reason I had a three-bedroom place was because I had three sugar babies at any given point of time… and that’s my biggest regret because that’s what I spent the money on,’ he said.

‘Because if it was material stuff, if it was stuff like cars … at least the (US Securities and Exchange Commission) can take that and sell that. How can they get money back from sugar babies?’

Three days after the interview Qin was taken to Fort Dix Prison where he will spend the next seven-and-a-half years.

Qin said his girlfriend with whom he lost his virginity cheated on him, which led to years of trust and commitment issues

Qin said his girlfriend with whom he lost his virginity cheated on him, which led to years of trust and commitment issues

His lawyers Kaplan Hecker & Fink claimed during his trial their client had made the mistakes because of a traumatic childhood that had led to sexual and video game addiction.

Qin told US district judge Valerie Caproni he believed he was the main character of a game.

Authorities said the fraud occurred from 2017 to 2020 as Qin operated the fund, called Virgil Sigma.

During this time, he was invited by CNBC to appear on their program ‘Fast Money’ and give advice on investing in cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Caproni noted that there was a charm to Qin, but she also said that a victim of his Ponzi scheme had warned her not to be taken in by his charm. She said that if his contrition were sincere, he’d never be in a courtroom again.

‘But if he’s charming me the way he charmed his victims; he’s a real danger because he thinks his needs are more important than everyone else’s,’ she added.

She said he deserved a measure of leniency, though, because he had cooperated with authorities as they tried to identify where money from investors went.

Qin cheated more than 100 investors and used their money to bankroll extravagant parties and pay for a $35,000-a-month penthouse in Lower Manhattan

Qin cheated more than 100 investors and used their money to bankroll extravagant parties and pay for a $35,000-a-month penthouse in Lower Manhattan

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Qin promised his investors safety, but ‘investors soon discovered that his strategies weren’t much more than a disguised means for him to embezzle and make unauthorized investments with client funds’

She said in a release that he doubled down on his scheme when he was faced with redemption requests.

‘Qin’s brazen and wide-ranging scheme left his beleaguered investors in the lurch for over US$54 million, and he has now been handed the appropriately lengthy sentence of over seven years in federal prison,’ she said.

Qin pleaded guilty in February, admitting he carried out the fraud when he owned and controlled two Manhattan-based cryptocurrency investment funds, Virgil Sigma and VQR.

Qin, who was ordered to forfeit US$54.7 million, told Caproni that he had learned through his crime that success, money and fame were not what was important in life.

‘I know now that the world is not a video game,’ he said. ‘I deserve the punishment that I’m going to receive today. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the pain I’ve caused. I am so, so, so sorry.’   

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