China moves to confiscate $5 billion in Bitcoin from fraudster who fled to the UK

Chinese authorities are working to seize nearly 62,000 bitcoins, valued at around $5 billion, linked to a major fraud case involving Qian Zhimin, the alleged controller of Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology. Qian allegedly ran a scheme from 2014 to 2017, raising some RMB 40.3 billion ($2.8 billion) by selling fake wealth management products, and later fled to the UK in July 2017. While UK authorities seized the crypto assets, the UK High Court ruled that Chinese law, not UK law, applies to ownership disputes, meaning victims' potential recovery depends on Chinese compensation mechanisms. The Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin accepted the prosecution’s application on September 28 to confiscate Qian’s illicit assets.