Qian Zhimin's 61,000 BTC big pump to 50 billion RMB, how much can China recover?

Qian Zhimin, this name has resurfaced after being silent for several years. On November 11 local time, Qian Zhimin, the main culprit of the Tianjin Lantian Ge Rui Special Illegal Fundraising Case in China and the largest Bitcoin Money Laundering case in British history, was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in prison in the UK. The British police have locked up 61,000 Bitcoins, worth nearly 50 billion yuan at current market prices, and the question of who should claim the appreciation part has become the focus of legal games between China and the UK.

$40.2 Billion Ponzi Scheme: How Qian Zhiming Turned Hard-Earned Money into Bitcoin

Recalling the past seven to eight years, the victim Zheng Zhengge described it as “a total loss of investment, with wife and children separated.” In 2016, through a friend's introduction, this teacher, who did not have a substantial income, came into contact with an investment project called “Blue Sky Ge Rui.” At that time, Blue Sky Ge Rui claimed to be jointly developing a pension project with the local government and portrayed smart pensions as a trend for future development. Zheng Zhengge did not trust private enterprises, but the notion of “government cooperation” made him let down his guard. In order to board this wealth train, he overdrawn his credit card and took out salary loans, investing more than one million in total.

The myth shattered unexpectedly. Over the years, he has been struggling in the quagmire of debt repayment, with more than a hundred thousand yuan in outstanding debts to this day. In his most desperate times, due to overdue loans, he was placed on the credit blacklist, and his salary card was frozen for three to four years. As a teacher, he attends classes on time, yet he cannot receive his salary, while his children at home are waiting for money to attend university.

And the person who harvested the money from “investors,” Zhiming, instructed “frontmen” to open accounts on the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi since June 2014, systematically converting investors' funds into crypto assets. The judgment from the UK Supreme Court detailed this process.

Key Data on Qian Zhimin's Illegal Fundraising

Total Amount of Funds Raised: 40.2 billion RMB (2014.8-2017.7)

Refund Amount: Over 34.1 billion (to 128,409 people)

Purchase Bitcoin: 1.14 billion

Actual Purchase: 194,951 Bitcoins

Police Target: 61,000 Bitcoins

Missing: Approximately 130,000 Bitcoins

According to the project audit, from August 2014 to July 2017, Blue Sky Ge Rui absorbed more than 40.2 billion in funds, all of which were controlled and allocated by Qian Zhiming. From April 2014 to August 2017, Blue Sky Ge Rui refunded more than 34.1 billion to 128,409 people, and an additional more than 1.14 billion was used to purchase Bitcoin.

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

Documents obtained by the media from the UK court also show that Qian Zhimin purchased a total of 194,951 Bitcoins, which is higher than the 61,000 coins identified by the police. However, the court did not reveal the status of the remaining more than 120,000 Bitcoins. This also means that there is a high possibility that there are still Bitcoins in Qian Zhimin's assets that have not been discovered or seized. In an interview with the British media, Detective Joe Ryan of the London Metropolitan Police revealed that Qian Zhimin claimed that the password for a wallet containing 20,000 Bitcoins was “lost.” According to the latest market conversion price, these “lost” Bitcoins alone are worth about 12.5 billion.

Cross-Border Game of Seizing Assets Between China and the UK: Who Should Benefit from Value-Added Revenue?

Due to the surge in Bitcoin prices, the market value of the involved Bitcoin once approached 50 billion yuan. Whether the victims can expect full compensation, or even make a “profit” due to the increase in coin value, as well as who should enjoy the appreciation, has become one of the focal points of the discussion in this case. Yan Lixin, a professor at Fudan University’s International Finance Institute and executive director of the Fudan University China Anti-Money Laundering Research Center, pointed out 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 game of legal, diplomatic, and geopolitical maneuvering, centered around the battle for “ownership” and “jurisdiction.”

The UK Supreme Court expressed particular sympathy for the plight of these “investors.” On November 11, 2025, during the sentencing statement for Qian Zhiming, UK judge Sally-Anne Hurst specifically pointed out that, although the currently seized funds are sufficient to repay the investors, this does not erase the real harm suffered by the victims beyond financial loss: “Some have lost their homes, suffered physical and mental health issues, and experienced the breakdown of marriages and family relationships, with 'shame' being a recurring common feeling.”

Between 2021 and 2022, the Tianjin Public Security Bureau conducted two rounds of refunds for victims with registered personal data, with ratios of 5% and 8%. Zheng Zhengge said: “For those investing hundreds of millions, this is just a drop in the bucket.” In November 2021, Wu Xiaolong, general manager of Lantian Ge Rui, was tried, with the personal amount involved determined to be 8.7 billion yuan, and the executable assets under his name amounting to 9.56 million yuan, which is only one-thousandth of the amount to be recovered.

On the other side of the ocean, the UK has issued a property freezing order in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act, with 61,000 frozen Bitcoins now worth over £5 billion due to a market surge. In September 2024, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service officially initiated civil recovery proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. According to asset recovery statistics released by the UK government, the Home Office will share confiscated assets with the requesting country, with a typical sharing ratio of 50%. In specific cases involving victims, the UK may negotiate a different ratio.

Dispute over Value-Added Income Attribution: Tracking Principle vs Unjust Enrichment

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 UK judges. “However, the 'tracing principle' in the anti-money laundering field tells us: if the victim's money was used to buy a lottery ticket that won a big prize, the victim is entitled to claim the prize, not just the principal of the lottery ticket.”

Zhao Binghao, the director of the Institute of Financial Technology and Rule of Law at China University of Political Science and Law, agrees with this logic. He said that civil recovery focuses on whether the property itself is a representative of illegal gains. In principle, as long as the victim can prove that the money they were deceived out of has grown into the “fruit” of virtual currency along the link, they have the right to claim compensation at current value. However, whether the amount can be fully realized depends on whether the funds on the chain can be completely traced, how to allocate among different victims, and the court's acceptance of the evidence chain.

However, the co-chairman of the Blockchain Special Committee of the China Communication Industry Association, Yu Jianing, expressed an opposing view. He believes that the enormous appreciation of 61,000 Bitcoins formed over seven years is a typical capital gain, stemming from the market surge of Bitcoin. If victims are allowed to assert rights based on the current market value of Bitcoin, it would be equivalent to acknowledging that they enjoy investment returns brought by the appreciation of virtual currency within a fundamentally illegal fund structure. “This not only conflicts with the negative evaluation of illegal fundraising activities under criminal law but also creates a reverse incentive ethically, where 'success means high returns, while failure makes one a victim.'”

He pointed out that, referring to precedents such as the “first case in the coin circle” in China, the PlusToken case, Chinese courts uniformly recognize the entire value of virtual currencies, including the appreciation formed by price increases, as illegal gains, without using the cost or purchase price as the calculation basis. For this part of the appreciation that far exceeds the total principal amount, “it is more suitable to be understood as a public residual value.” The Chinese side should advocate through diplomatic and judicial means that this huge premium is the overall indivisibility of criminal asset packages, and recover it to be included in the Chinese treasury.

Technical Certification Challenges and Forfeiture Prospects

According to Jia Ning, for an ordinary investor, tracking the RMB they “invested” years ago all the way to today’s 61,000 Bitcoins seized by the UK police is technically almost an impossible task. The reason lies in the fact that this path crosses three essentially disconnected systems: first, the bank account and cash collection system primarily based on RMB; second, the over-the-counter (OTC) coin exchange market that heavily relies on personal networks and WeChat groups for facilitation; and third, the on-chain capital flow that is deliberately disrupted by cold wallets, multiple hops, and mixers.

“The moment the funds arrive at the street promoter or the capital pool, they are injected into a huge black box, and individuals can no longer see which amount of money has been exchanged for which coin.” More complicated is that in the Lantian Ge Rui case, a large number of investors are involved in multiple projects with rolling investments, mixing principal, profits, and reinvestment, resulting in a discrepancy between the account amount and the actual losses.

Yan Lixin suggested that a more feasible path is for the Chinese government or designated asset managers to represent all victims and file civil lawsuits in British courts. “This is not only a legal technical issue but also a social governance issue. The government's involvement can maximize the appeasement of domestic victims' emotions while demonstrating national will in international courts.”

Faced with extremely high legal thresholds and retrieval costs, Zheng Zhengge ultimately chose to seek assistance from a third-party organization facilitated by a multinational corporation to protect his rights. Although the compensation commission rate promised by the other party could be as high as 20%, he just hopes to quickly recover his principal, “As for the profits from the appreciation, I dare not be overly ambitious.”

Yan Lixin provided a sharper metaphor: “Our 'internal restrictions' are to prevent financial risks, while 'external claims' are to uphold judicial justice. These two are not contradictory, just like cleaning up while the door is closed does not mean that others can casually pick up what is left at the door.”