London's High Court ruled on October 12, 2026 that Chinese law governs fraud victims' ownership claims over 61,000 seized Bitcoin worth $5 billion. Justice Mark Turner found the underlying Ponzi scheme operated by Zhimin Qian occurred in China. While the ruling does not decide final ownership, applying Chinese law complicates victims' efforts to claim property rights under UK Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings, raising the likelihood that the UK Treasury retains the asset windfall. Lead law firm Fieldfisher is appealing the decision.
High Court ruling on Chinese law
- ▪Justice Mark Turner's High Court ruling on October 12, 2026 does not make a final determination on who ultimately owns the 61,000 seized Bitcoin
- ▪London's High Court Justice Mark Turner ruled on October 12, 2026 that Chinese law governs ownership claims by victims of Zhimin Qian's fraud over 61,000 Bitcoin seized from Qian
- ▪Justice Mark Turner determined Chinese law applies because the fraudulent representations in Zhimin Qian's scheme, the investment contracts, and financial losses occurred in China
Impact on victim ownership claims
- ▪Thousands of Chinese fraud victims filed claims under Section 281 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 seeking declarations of direct ownership over the Bitcoin seized from Zhimin Qian
- ▪Applying Chinese law improves the UK government's chances of retaining the Bitcoin windfall seized from Zhimin Qian if victims of the fraud fail to establish proprietary ownership rights
- ▪English property law could have allowed victims of the Zhimin Qian fraud to assert proprietary ownership over the seized Bitcoin, whereas status as mere creditors limits them to original investment amounts
- ▪Crown Prosecution Service prosecutors stated that victims of the Zhimin Qian fraud could potentially receive compensation through a redress scheme administered in China
Duan & Duan legal analysis
- ▪Law firm Duan & Duan explained that a personal claim against the fraudsters behind Zhimin Qian's scheme as a creditor for the value of money paid is not enough
- ▪Duan & Duan UK LLP partner Jackson Ng noted Justice Mark Turner's ruling leaves whether victims retain rights in the Bitcoin frozen from Zhimin Qian to be determined under Chinese law
Legal representation for victims
- ▪Law firm Fieldfisher, representing individual claimants in the dispute over the 61,000 Bitcoin seized from Zhimin Qian, announced it is pursuing an appeal against Justice Mark Turner's October 12 ruling
- ▪Law firm Candey represented approximately 5,700 victims of the Zhimin Qian Bitcoin fraud scheme in March
Seizure and value of seized Bitcoin
- ▪The 61,000 Bitcoin seized by UK authorities is valued at approximately £3.8 billion ($5 billion to $5.1 billion)
- ▪London's Metropolitan Police seized 61,000 Bitcoin from devices during searches in October and November 2018
- ▪The UK government holds an estimated 61,245 BTC ($5.1 billion), ranking third globally in government Bitcoin holdings behind the United States and China
Zhimin Qian's fraud scheme and conviction
- ▪Zhimin Qian pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraud offenses and was sentenced in November 2025 to 11 years and eight months in prison
- ▪Zhimin Qian, also known as Yadi Zhang, defrauded over 128,000 investors through a Ponzi scheme run via Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology between 2014 and 2017
- ▪Zhimin Qian's fraud scheme raised 40.2 billion yuan (£4.1 billion) across 128,409 investment contracts and left approximately 6.1 billion yuan (£600 million) unreturned
- ▪Zhimin Qian fled China to the UK in 2017 after purchasing over 100,000 Bitcoin using fraud proceeds on Huobi, OTC transactions, and mining
Debatable claims
- ▪Chinese law is the appropriate legal standard for ownership claims over the UK-seized Bitcoin
- ▪The UK government should retain unallocated criminal proceeds rather than redistributing appreciation to victims
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