Qian Zhimin illegally raised 40.3 billion yuan, fled to the UK after converting the embezzled funds into Bitcoin, and over 61,000 Bitcoins were seized by the British police. The UK Supreme Court ruled that victims' claims for restitution should be judged according to Chinese law, and domestic courts are simultaneously accepting applications for the confiscation of related assets; it is still uncertain how much restitution victims will ultimately receive.

Written by: Conflux

In 2017, a Chinese woman named Qian Zhimin fled to the UK with a laptop containing a Bitcoin wallet. In the previous three years, her company, Tianjin Blue Sky Geri Co., Ltd., sold financial products nationwide, promising high returns, absorbing about 40.3 billion yuan, with approximately 128,000 participants, of which over 100,000 ultimately suffered investment losses.

Part of that money was converted into Bitcoin. The British police later seized over 61,000 of those coins. At the current estimated price of about 540,000 yuan each, this batch of coins is valued at about 33.4 billion yuan, which exceeds the 19.977 billion yuan loss amount disclosed by the Tianjin prosecution.

On October 12, the UK High Court ruled on the ownership dispute regarding these Bitcoins: The victims' claims to them must be judged by Chinese law.

Qian Zhimin purchased Bitcoin on the Huobi exchange at an average price of about 2,815 yuan each; now it is around 540,000 yuan, an increase of over 190 times. It is currently unclear how much victims will ultimately receive.

The 40.3 Billion Financial Fraud

Qian Zhimin is the actual controller of Tianjin Blue Sky Geri Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. From April 2014 to August 2017, this company sold fraudulent financial products in various parts of the country, claiming capital protection, interest refunds, and substantial returns to the public.

A request filed by the Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court on October 13 showed that the company had cumulatively raised about 40.3 billion yuan, most of which was not used for production and operation. Some of this money was used to pay back principal and interest to early investors, some to maintain the operation of the fraud, while another part was converted to Bitcoin or used to buy real estate, cars, and jewelry.

About 128,000 people participated in these financial products. The request stated that more than 102,000 of them suffered investment losses, totaling about 19.977 billion yuan.

Bitcoin in the Laptop

Qian Zhimin bought a significant amount of Bitcoin with investors' money. According to Caixin reports, Qian Zhimin had purchased large quantities of Bitcoin through her Huobi account, with the reported average purchase price being around 2,815 yuan each. In 2017, she further acquired about 51,000 Bitcoins for 468 million yuan through over-the-counter trading. According to UK court documents, from 2014 to 2017, she had accumulated about 195,000 Bitcoins.

After the case broke out in 2017, she sneaked into Myanmar, then traveled through Thailand, Laos, and Malaysia, and on September 16, entered London using another identity under the name "Zhang Yadi." She carried with her a laptop containing a Bitcoin wallet.

In the UK, she hired a Chinese woman named Wen Jian, who had previously worked in a takeaway shop, as her assistant. In 2018, the two attempted to purchase a Hampstead mansion valued at approximately 23.5 million pounds, but the source of the funds couldn't be sufficiently explained, raising scrutiny and becoming a lead for police to trace this asset.

In October 2018, the Metropolitan Police searched their residence, seizing electronic devices and wallet certificates. In the summer of 2021, the police gained access to the wallets in the devices, confirming the involvement of over 61,000 Bitcoins, marking the largest cryptocurrency seizure in British history.

At that time, Qian Zhimin had not been apprehended. In April 2024, she was arrested in northern England, pleaded guilty in September 2025, and was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in November. Wen Jian had previously been found guilty of money laundering by the jury and sentenced to 6 years and 8 months.

This Ruling, What Did It Rule?

Bitcoin is in the hands of the British police, but who it belongs to will be decided by a civil forfeiture process in the UK courts. The British prosecution agency has filed a lawsuit under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, with Qian Zhimin and Wen Jian as defendants. Article 281 of that law allows parties to apply to the court to declare that seized property belongs to them, prompting some Chinese investors to file applications based on this.

Applicants must prove they have property rights to the Bitcoins. Simply stating "they owe me money" as a creditor of the fraudster is not enough.

The ruling on October 12 addressed under which country's laws such rights should be judged. The prosecution and the litigation administrator of Blue Sky Geri argued for the application of Chinese law, while some investors advocated for UK law. Judge Turner determined that the fraud in question, the resulting transactions, and the losses incurred by investors were all primarily centered in China, and Chinese law should be applied.

This is a preliminary decision on the applicable law, not a ruling on ownership. According to the ruling text, the court has yet to obtain evidence about the specific contents of Chinese law and has not reviewed the claims of the victims individually.

This step is significant because the paths provided by the two sets of laws may differ. Market analyses generally suggest that if English law applies, victims would have more avenues to claim ownership of the Bitcoins and share in their appreciation; if Chinese law applies, investors might at most only recover their principal and interest.

On the Chinese side, the property attribute of Bitcoin is mainly determined by judicial practice without clear statutory provisions. The investment contracts were denominated in RMB, making it very difficult to establish a tracking chain between each investment amount and the seized Bitcoins.

The ruling has caused victims to lose a legal pathway they had originally hoped to pursue. Currently, about 16,000 people have registered claims through the UK process. The law firm Fieldfisher, which represents some victims, stated plans to appeal, and the court will hold further hearings to determine whether victims can prove their rights.

Two informed sources also believe that this ruling increases the likelihood that the UK government will ultimately retain part of the forfeited assets, but the UK Treasury has not yet obtained final ownership of this batch of Bitcoins.

Tianjin has also filed a case

On October 13, the Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court announced that it had accepted a confession from the prosecution to confiscate the illegal gains of Qian Zhimin on September 28. The property sought for confiscation includes 61,896.41552945 Bitcoins, as well as cash, jewelry, and financial assets including Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Dogecoin, and other virtual currencies.

According to the request, apart from the legally mandated return of losses to affected investment participants, the rest will be confiscated.

The announcement period is six months, during which Qian Zhimin's close relatives and other interested parties may apply to participate in the lawsuit. Affected investment participants can handle procedures through the WeChat mini-program "Tianjin Second Intermediate Court Interested Parties Litigation Platform," and not participating in the lawsuit does not affect their rights to claim back funds from forfeited assets.

Caixin analysis believes that if a Chinese court issues a confiscation order and applies to the UK for recognition and enforcement, it could complement the UK's civil forfeiture process, but this route is not the usual practice of Chinese law enforcement agencies.

In October 2025, Tianjin police reported that public security agencies had not entrusted third-party organizations to conduct cross-border recovery and reminded victims to discern so-called cross-border recovery agents to avoid secondary fraud.

Another Case

In another case in 2021, which was on a much smaller scale, also occurred on the Binance Smart Chain (now called BNB Chain), resulted in some victims recovering money.

In June 2021, a stablecoin project called StableMagnet on BSC ran away, involving amounts exceeding 27 million USD. After gathering enough funds, the project team closed their website and transferred the money into their own wallets. Someone in the community checked the publicly available contract code and found no obvious anomalies. However, the external function library called by the main contract did not receive the same level of validation, and there was a backdoor hidden in the actually deployed library, ultimately leading to the funds being transferred away.

One victim from the DeFi circle traced the code writing habits on GitHub, pinpointing a Hong Kong team, and leads from cryptocurrency exchange Binance also pointed to Hong Kong. Ultimately, Greater Manchester Police seized about 22.25 million USD (over 16 million pounds) in cryptocurrency starting in July 2021, including around 9.5 million USD in Ethereum in one encrypted USB drive, and police arrested a 23-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman at that time.

In February 2022, the police announced they had returned over 4 million pounds to 23 verified victims, with another 127 claims under investigation. Victims came from the UK, the US, Europe, China, Australia, and Hong Kong.

To apply for a refund, one needs to provide the name of the investment service, the reporting law enforcement agency, wallet address, and documents proving asset ownership; the police also need to verify whether the applicant was indeed defrauded by the project. One claimant from this case stated that he had someone file a report in Hong Kong and successfully reclaimed his lost funds based on the receipt from the Hong Kong report and other documents.

Compared to the funds path in the Qian Zhimin case where the RMB investment was converted into digital assets through the company's account, the on-chain records provide more direct investigation leads for the StableMagnet case. Whether the money can be recovered still depends on whether the police have retrieved the relevant assets and whether the applicants can prove they were defrauded by the project and have rights to the relevant funds.

While the nature and scale of the two cases are not entirely the same, the commonality is: once the assets are controlled by the police, victims must be able to prove their connection to the money, and have it recognized by the authorities.

Two Procedures, Progressing Simultaneously

The Qian Zhimin case has not concluded due to this ruling. The UK procedure addresses the ownership of seized property and the recovery of criminal proceeds, while domestic procedures deal with the confiscation of illegal gains and the return of funds to affected investment participants. The issues each side needs to resolve are not completely the same; which assets can be returned, how they will be distributed, and how much victims will ultimately receive are still ambiguous.

The announcement period in Tianjin is six months, while the next round of hearings in the UK is expected in 2027.

For the victims, what remains truly unresolved is no longer just where the Bitcoin has gone.

When a criminal gain is converted into an ever-appreciating digital asset, just how much claim can the original investors assert over these assets? And when the assets are already under the control of law enforcement, which set of laws and evidential rules will determine who ultimately gets the money?