Follow-Up: Fight Over Zhimin Qian's 61,896 Bitcoin Widens: Tianjin Court Takes Up Confiscation Bid as UK Victims' Claims Head to Chinese Law

The fight over the 61,896 bitcoin seized from Zhimin Qian has widened. The Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court has published a notice saying it accepted, on September 28, an application by the Tianjin People's Procuratorate (Second Branch) to confiscate Qian's illegal gains — 61,896.41552945 bitcoin plus forked coins, cash and other assets. A six-month public notice period is now running; interested parties may apply to join the proceedings, amounts legally owed to investors are to be returned first, and the remainder confiscated. The coins remain in UK police custody, and a Chinese court order would not by itself transfer them.

In London, Mr Justice Turner ruled on October 12 in the Director of Public Prosecutions' civil recovery proceedings that victims' proprietary claims to the bitcoin, brought under section 281 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, are governed by Chinese law. In that argument the British prosecution contended for Chinese law while the victims argued for English law — under Chinese law, participants in an illegal fundraising scheme rank as creditors entitled to repayment of losses, whereas English proprietary tracing principles might have let them claim the coins themselves, appreciation included. Fieldfisher, the firm leading the victims' claims, has said it will appeal; no hearing date has been announced.

At stake is the appreciation. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Qian's 2014–2017 fraud through Tianjin Lantian Gerui drew in more than 128,000 victims with losses of about £600 million, of which about £20.2 million was converted into bitcoin. Those coins are now worth roughly £3.8 billion (about US$5 billion, by current press estimates) — some 200 times the purchase price. The gap between the victims' roughly £600 million of unpaid losses and the coins' current value is what the competing claims are really about.

Qian pleaded guilty on September 29, 2025, at Southwark Crown Court to two offences of possessing illegally obtained cryptocurrency and money laundering, and was sentenced on November 11, 2025, to 11 years and eight months. Her accomplice Seng Hok Ling received four years and eleven months, and a £5.6 million confiscation order against him was confirmed this month as satisfied in full. GSM has followed the High Court ruling and the confiscation order in earlier reports (see the related links in this story).

Related:

UK High Court Rules Chinese Law Governs Victims' Claims to Qian Zhimin's 61,000 Seized Bitcoin

Follow-Up: £5.6 Million Confiscation Order Against Qian Zhimin Accomplice Satisfied in Full

Source: GSM America

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：位于伦敦的英国皇家司法院（高等法院所在地）。CC0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The Royal Courts of Justice in London, home of the High Court. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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