UK May Retain £3.8B in Bitcoin From Chinese Fraud Victims

Victims of a fraud centred in China are still owed about £600 million, and they may lose the opportunity to benefit from a UK-held Bitcoin (BTC) stash worth £3.8 billion, or $5 billion. A London judge has ruled that their entitlements to the 61,000 coins are governed by Chinese law, not English law.

Who ultimately owns the coins is not resolved by the decision. It only determines the applicable legal framework, and the scope of what Chinese law permits has yet to be examined in court.

Why Chinese Law Undermines the Victims' Claim

Mr Justice Turner handed down his decision on October 12 at the High Court, the forum for major civil litigation in England and Wales. The victims' action rests on the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, UK legislation aimed at reclaiming criminal assets.

That statute requires each victim to establish that the coins are their property. According to the judgment, a person who is merely owed money as a creditor does not meet that test.

English law might have provided an opening, since its trust principles can follow stolen money into assets bought with it later. The judge, however, determined that the promotional approach, the transfers, and the buys of the coins all happened in China.

“Those dealings were overwhelmingly centred in China,” Judge Turner stated.

What the Victims Lost and Who May Keep the Remainder

Court documents indicate the scheme collected roughly 40.2 billion yuan (£4.1 billion) from 2014 through 2017. Around 34.1 billion yuan was returned, although not every investor got money back.

That leaves about 6.1 billion yuan outstanding, or roughly £600 million using the exchange rate adopted in the ruling. By contrast, at a current bitcoin price close to $83,143, the confiscated coins are valued at roughly $5.1 billion.

Coins for which no victim can prove ownership may be taken by the state through civil recovery. If the victims are no more than creditors, most of the coins' value could end up in the hands of UK authorities.

The scheme's operator, Zhimin Qian, received a prison sentence of more than 11 years in November 2025 after entering a guilty plea in a record Bitcoin seizure case. Fieldfisher, the lead law firm for the victims, intends to appeal, according to the Financial Times.

BeInCrypto asked last year what would become of the coins. This decision narrows the victims' route to them.