Can the 40 billion Bitcoins that Qian Zhimin took away be returned to China?

Ge Qiu hadn't seen the name "Qian Zhimin" for several years, and discussions surrounding this name and the Lantian Gree Investment case had gradually subsided. Until recently, in the last two months, her nearly 400-member rights protection group became lively again, with members forwarding lawyer interpretations and various short videos about the case's progress.

On November 11th local time, Qian Zhimin, the main culprit in the massive illegal fundraising case of Lantian Gree Investment in Tianjin, China, and the largest Bitcoin money laundering case in British history, was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in prison in the UK. With the criminal part of the case settled, public attention shifted to transnational restitution.

In this case, British police identified 61,000 bitcoins, which, according to British judicial documents, were mainly purchased with proceeds from Qian Zhimin's crimes in China. The UK Supreme Court was scheduled to hold another hearing on November 17th to discuss the disposal of the 61,000 bitcoins, but subsequently announced a postponement until January 2026.

A lawyer who participated in the Qian Zhimin case trials multiple times told *China Newsweek* that British courts are currently conducting both criminal proceedings and civil recovery proceedings simultaneously. The participants and courts in these two proceedings are different, and some evidence from the criminal proceedings may be used in the civil recovery proceedings. It takes time for the participants and the court in the civil recovery proceedings to become familiar with this evidence, so the postponement of the hearing is understandable. Due to the soaring price of Bitcoin, the market value of the Bitcoin involved in the case once approached 50 billion yuan. Whether the victims can expect to receive full compensation, or even "profit" from the appreciation in value, and who should enjoy the increased value, has become one of the focal points of discussion in this case. Yan Lixin, professor at the School of International Finance at Fudan University and executive director of the Fudan University China Anti-Money Laundering Research Center, told *China Newsweek* that this Bitcoin money laundering case is not only an "epic" case in the field of digital currency anti-money laundering, but also a complex legal, diplomatic, and geopolitical game, a battle over "ownership" and "jurisdiction." "Our core demand is very clear—returning the assets to their rightful owner, that is, returning them to the Chinese victims." More than 61,000 Bitcoins. Recalling the past seven or eight years, Zheng Zhengge described it as "losing everything and losing his family." In 2016, through a friend's introduction, this teacher, whose income was not high, came into contact with an investment project called "Lantian Gerui." At that time, Lantian Gerui claimed to be working with local governments to develop elderly care projects and portrayed smart elderly care as a future trend. Zheng Zhengge did not trust private enterprises, but the claim of "government cooperation" made him lower his guard. To get on this wealth train, he overspent on credit cards and took out loans with his salary, investing more than one million yuan in total. The myth shattered suddenly and unexpectedly. For years, he has struggled to repay his debts, still owing over 100,000 yuan. At his most desperate, due to loan defaults, he was blacklisted from the credit system, and his salary card was frozen for three or four years. As a teacher, he taught classes regularly but didn't receive his salary, while his children were waiting for the money to attend university. Meanwhile, Qian Zhimin, who profited at the expense of "investors," instructed his "front figures" to open accounts on the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi.com starting in June 2014, systematically converting investor funds into crypto assets. A UK Supreme Court ruling details this process.

The person wearing a mask on the right is Qian Zhimin (file photo)

When Qian Zhimin arrived in the UK in September 2017, he had approximately 70,000 bitcoins, worth £305 million. In October 2018, London police conducted their first search of his residence in Hampstead, discovering an additional £163,000 in cash and evidence of the transfer and conversion of over 18,800 bitcoins, gradually leading to clues about approximately 61,000 bitcoins.

The person wearing a mask on the right is Qian Zhimin (file photo)

When Qian Zhimin arrived in the UK in September 2017, he had approximately 70,000 bitcoins, worth £305 million. In October 2018, London police conducted their first search of his residence in Hampstead, discovering an additional £163,000 in cash and evidence of the transfer and conversion of over 18,800 bitcoins, gradually identifying clues about approximately 61,000 bitcoins.

Proof is "stolen money" stained with blood

Several interviewees recalled to China News Weekly that between 2021 and 2022, the Tianjin Municipal Public Security Bureau had conducted two rounds of restitution for victims who had registered their personal information, at rates of 5% and 8%. Zheng Zhengge said: "For people who have invested tens of millions, this is just a drop in the bucket."

In November 2021, Wu Xiaolong, general manager of Lantian Gree, was tried. The amount of money involved in his personal case was determined to be 8.7 billion yuan, and the assets under his name that could be executed were 9.56 million yuan, only one-thousandth of the amount to be recovered. Meanwhile, across the ocean, the UK has issued an asset freeze order under the Property Protection Act. The 61,000 frozen Bitcoins, due to a market surge, are now worth over £5 billion. In September 2024, the Crown Prosecution Service formally initiated civil recovery proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) and issued a "Victim Notice Regarding the Blue Sky Green scam," explaining the recovery process. Theoretically, according to Section 281 of the POCA, the claims process provides a narrow door for "investors" seeking redress—they can file a claim with the UK Supreme Court, asserting their legal claims to their assets. On October 15, 2025, the UK Crown Prosecution Service also proposed during a preliminary hearing that it was considering establishing a "compensation scheme" for Chinese victims who were not involved in civil cases. This scheme is currently awaiting court review and approval. *China Newsweek* sent an email to the Crown Prosecution Service inquiring about specific details, but had not received a valid response as of press time. According to the UK government's statistics on asset recovery, the Home Office shares confiscated assets with the requesting country, typically at a 50% ratio. In specific cases involving victims, the UK may negotiate a different ratio. Professor Zhu Jiangnan of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong pointed out to *China News Weekly* that, according to the *Sino-British Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters*, when the assets confiscated by the requested party are public funds, and these assets are proceeds of embezzlement or misappropriation by the requesting party, regardless of whether these funds have been laundered, the requested party should return the confiscated assets or the proceeds from the sale of those assets to the requesting party, but reasonable realization costs should be deducted. For economic fraud involving non-public funds, such as the Qian Zhimin case, the provisions stipulate applicable circumstances, but the specific return situation still needs to be ultimately determined through judicial procedures, based on the chain of evidence, court hearings, diplomatic negotiations, and consultations; there is no clearly defined and uniform proportion. Furthermore, once it is finally determined how much of the funds belong to the UK, the distribution of interests among different departments within the UK will also differ. Zhu Jiangnan stated that the UK's Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS) clearly stipulates that the assets will be split 50/50 between the central government and various law enforcement agencies to incentivize them to further combat crime. "In the Qian Zhimin case, the extremely high level of enthusiasm shown by the police and prosecutors, besides professional ethics and performance considerations, is hard to say was not driven by this incentive mechanism," Zhu Jiangnan analyzed. In response to inquiries from *China Newsweek* regarding asset disposal, the Metropolitan Police of London also clearly stated that the police hope to see some of the recovered assets "flow to London and Londoners." For the British police, who spent seven years investigating this case, this undoubtedly represents a channel for recovering funds to offset their investigation costs. "Faced with enormous profits, any institution can become a 'rational economic agent.' The ARIS mechanism turns law enforcement into a business, and what we need to do is prove that this money is 'stolen money,' not unclaimed 'profits,'" Yan Lixin pointed out to China News Weekly. The mismatch between "the case being abroad and the victim being in China" is the biggest challenge in cross-border asset recovery. Many experts emphasized the need to demonstrate the principle and stance of "victims first" in case negotiations. Yan Lixin said that according to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), the return of assets to their rightful owners is the first priority. "Only after all victims have been compensated will the remaining amount (if any) be discussed between China and the UK regarding profit sharing," Zhao Binghao, Dean of the Institute of Financial Technology and Rule of Law at China University of Political Science and Law, told China News Weekly. He added that my country can accept the UK deducting "reasonable enforcement costs," but needs to prevent automatically falling into a situation where a default return of 50% or even lower is imposed. Previously, the UK Supreme Court emphasized that unless an individual or entity asserts a claim at the stage stipulated in Article 281 of the POCA, there would be no interstate contact. In other words, the UK would first determine the ownership of the assets through its own judicial procedures before considering consultations with China on asset return. This action sparked controversy. Qian Zhimin's lawyer, Roger Sahota, stated, "The British court's move means that any surplus from recovered assets could be retained by the state, effectively turning law enforcement into a potential new source of government revenue." How much can be returned? For the victims in this case, the most anticipated outcome is undoubtedly a "full refund." This model is not without precedent. Zhu Jiangnan mentioned a landmark case in China's pursuit of fugitives and recovery of assets—the case of Li Huabo, the former head of the Economic Construction Section of the Finance Bureau of Poyang County, Jiangxi Province. In 2015, although China and Singapore did not conclude a bilateral judicial assistance treaty, the two sides cooperated, and the Singapore High Court enforced the Chinese court's confiscation ruling, returning all illicit funds in the Li Huabo case, totaling RMB 20.4464 million, to China. This was the first case in which Chinese prosecutors used the illegal proceeds confiscation procedure to recover illicit funds from corrupt officials who had fled overseas. Yan Lixin suggested that a more feasible approach would be for the Chinese government or its designated asset managers to represent all victims in a civil lawsuit in a British court, or to act as the right holder in a civil suit attached to a criminal case. "This is not only a legal technical issue, but also a social governance issue. The government's involvement can appease the emotions of domestic victims to the greatest extent, while simultaneously demonstrating the national will in international courts." Shanghai Duan & Duan Law Firm is one of the law firms involved in representing investors in the Lantian Gerui illegal fundraising case in their cross-border recovery of losses. Gu Zhaoqin, a lawyer at the Hongqiao branch of the firm, told *China News Weekly* that the British prosecution's civil recovery proceedings are still in their early stages, with substantive evidence exchange yet to begin, and the entire process will be lengthy. Previously, Yang Yuhua, a partner at the British law firm Junzhe, wrote that over a thousand Chinese investors have attempted to assert their rights through this process, with some making "radical" claims: demanding not only repayment of the principal but also the appreciation in value of Bitcoin over the past seven years. Yan Lixin believes that if Chinese victims claim compensation based on the appreciated value, they may face questions of "unjust enrichment" in the eyes of British judges. “However, the ‘tracing principle’ in the field of anti-money laundering tells us that if a victim’s money was used to buy lottery tickets and won a big prize, the victim has the right to claim the prize money, not just the principal of the lottery ticket.” Zhao Binghao also agrees with this logic. He said that civil recovery focuses on whether the property itself is representative of illegal gains. In principle, as long as the victim can prove that the money that was initially defrauded grew into virtual currency along the chain, they have the right to claim compensation based on its present value. However, whether the amount can be fully realized depends on whether the funds on the chain can be completely traced, how they are distributed among different victims, and the court’s acceptance of the chain of evidence. However, Yu Jianing, co-chairman of the Blockchain Committee of the China Communications Industry Association, expressed a different view to China News Weekly. He believes that the huge increase in value of 61,000 Bitcoins over seven years is a typical capital gain, which comes from the market increase of Bitcoin. Allowing victims to claim their rights based on Bitcoin's current market value is tantamount to acknowledging their right to enjoy investment returns from the appreciation of virtual currencies within an inherently illegal Ponzi scheme. This not only conflicts with the negative evaluation of illegal fundraising under criminal law but also creates a negative incentive ethically: "Success equals high returns, failure equals victimhood." He pointed out that, referencing precedents such as the PlusToken case, China's first cryptocurrency case, Chinese courts uniformly recognize the entire value of virtual currencies, including the appreciation resulting from price increases, as illegal gains, without using cost or purchase price as the basis for calculation. This appreciation, far exceeding the total principal, "is more appropriately understood as a public surplus value." China should assert this huge premium as an indivisible part of the criminal asset package through diplomatic and judicial channels, recovering it and incorporating it into the Chinese treasury. After repaying the victims' principal, the remaining huge sums should be converted into public financial resources. Beyond the technical challenges of evidence verification, the technical aspects of evidence verification present an even more intractable problem. Yu Jianing stated that for an ordinary investor, accurately tracing their past "investment" in RMB to the 61,000 Bitcoins seized by British police today is technically an almost impossible task. This is because this path traverses three fundamentally separate systems: first, the RMB-based bank account and cash collection system; second, the over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency exchange market heavily reliant on personal networks and WeChat groups; and third, on-chain fund flows deliberately disrupted by cold wallets, multi-layered redirects, and coin mixers. From 2014 to 2017, when Qian Zhimin systematically converted investor funds into crypto assets, Yu Jianing viewed it as a typical era of off-exchange currency swaps, concentrated buying, highly mixed funds, and the use of coin mixers. The source of funds lost individual identifiability the moment it entered the large pool. On-chain analysis could only reconstruct "the pool is dirty," not "whose drop of water it is." "From the moment the funds arrived at the ground promotion personnel or the fund pool, they were channeled into a huge black box; from an individual's perspective, it was completely impossible to see which sum of money was exchanged for which coin." More complicatedly, in the Lantian Gree case, many investors were involved in rolling investments across multiple projects. A lawyer who has studied the case in depth told *China News Weekly* that in this case, principal, profits, and reinvestment are intertwined, and the cashback methods for some products differ. Some people reinvest in cash, while others reinvest in physical assets such as "Dotcoin," resulting in a discrepancy between the book value and the actual loss. "Currently, whether in China or the UK, there is a lack of professional expertise capable of making a complete and credible reconstruction of the entire flow of funds, the Bitcoin conversion process, and the corresponding holder relationships." Faced with extremely high legal hurdles and pursuit costs, Zheng Zhengge ultimately chose a third-party organization facilitated by a multinational corporation to assist in his rights protection efforts. Although the promised compensation commission rate might be as high as 20%, he only hoped to recover his principal as soon as possible; "As for the returns on the increased value, I dare not hope for it." Furthermore, Zhao Binghao pointed out that some international judicial institutions might exploit the contradictions in my country's current regulatory and judicial practices to question China. “Regarding regulation, the issuance and financing of Bitcoin is illegal. However, in handling cases, we treat virtual currencies as property, putting us in a rather awkward position.” Yu Jianing believes that while China denies Bitcoin's monetary attributes, its Civil Code explicitly protects its rights as “online virtual property.” This provides a solid property rights basis for cross-border asset recovery. Yan Lixin offers a more incisive, “pragmatic, penetrating” analogy: “Our ‘internal ban’ is to prevent financial risks, while our ‘external pursuit’ is to uphold judicial justice. These two are not contradictory; just like cleaning behind closed doors doesn't mean others can freely pick up what's left outside.” "This case is not only about recovering stolen assets, but also an opportunity. It forces China to shift its virtual currency regulation from 'only emphasizing risks and prohibition' to a more refined governance approach that 'prevents risks, has rules, and aligns with international standards.' Only in this way can China have sufficient say and institutional confidence in future transnational asset recovery and asset sharing negotiations," said Zhao Binghao. (Zheng Zhengge and Ge Qiu are pseudonyms in this article)