The UK High Court has ruled that Chinese law should govern the determination of victims' rights over 61,000 bitcoins seized in London, a decision that strengthens the British state's position in one of the largest cryptocurrency forfeiture cases on record. The bitcoins, worth approximately £3.8 billion, or roughly $5 billion, were confiscated from Zhimin Qian, who ran a fraud scheme in China between 2014 and 2017 before relocating to London that same year.
Judge Mark Turner handed down the ruling on Monday, October 12. The decision does not itself confirm who owns the bitcoins, but it determines which legal system will be used to settle competing claims, a question with significant consequences for how much of the fortune victims can ultimately recover.
London police seized devices giving access to the cryptocurrencies during raids in October and November 2018. Qian later pleaded guilty to money laundering offences and was sentenced in November 2025 to eleven years and eight months in prison. The restitution proceedings are being handled under the UK's Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Thousands of victims involved
Around 16,000 victims of the original fraud have joined the UK proceedings in an attempt to recover their losses. Their interests have been represented in part by the law firm Duan & Duan, while Fieldfisher, acting for some of the claimants, has indicated it intends to appeal the ruling on applicable law.
The choice of Chinese law over English law is understood to work in favour of the UK state's ability to retain a larger share of the seized bitcoins, rather than see the full proceeds distributed to the fraud's victims. The case has drawn attention well beyond London and Beijing given the scale of the sum at stake and the precedent it may set for how national courts treat cryptocurrency assets tied to cross-border fraud.
What happens next
With Fieldfisher signalling an appeal, the question of which legal system governs the victims' claims is unlikely to be settled quickly. The underlying dispute over ownership of the 61,000 bitcoins remains unresolved, and the amount any individual victim might eventually recover has not been determined. The case was reported by the Financial Times.
