Many thousands of Chinese investors who lost money in a large Bitcoin scam might spend years trying to get their money back.
Important Points:
- Chinese investors who were tricked in a $6 billion Bitcoin scam might have to deal with legal problems for many years to get their money back.
- The UK took 61,000 BTC related to the case but showing that the victims own it is still a big problem.
- Lawyers say that people who lost money are not likely to get back the increased value of Bitcoin, because courts mostly focus on returning the original amounts lost.
The ongoing battle happens as lawyers try to show a clear connection between their claims and 61,000 bitcoins taken by British authorities, as reported by Nikkie Asia.
A Chinese businesswoman is accused of a $6 billion cryptocurrency scam and escaped to the UK in 2017
The case is about Qian Zhimin, who is also called Zhang Yadi. She is a 47-year-old woman from China who escaped to the UK in 2017 after being accused of cheating investors with her company, Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology.
Between 2014 and 2017, she is said to have made 43 billion yuan (about $6 billion) by selling investment products that promised high returns, and then she changed that money into cryptocurrency.
In late September, Qian admitted in a London court that he was guilty of two counts of money laundering with cryptocurrencies.
Her partner, Wen Jian, was found guilty earlier this year and got almost seven years in prison for helping to transfer the money.
In 2018, the London Metropolitan Police took 61,000 bitcoins from Qian’s devices during a raid in Hampstead. Now, those bitcoins are worth more than $7. 4 billion, making it the biggest crypto seizure in the U. KSureHere’s a simpler version: “History is the story of what happened in the past. ”
The UK government might keep a lot of the Bitcoin they took, which has worried the lawyers of the victims in China.
Jack Ding, a helper in charge at Duan & Duan, which helps about 10,000 victims, said it’s a big challenge to connect the money from investors to the seized coins.
“Some materials don’t have enough information to show a clear link,” he said.
Legal experts say that it is difficult to track money when it moves through different accounts and currencies, which makes getting it back unclear.
A civil recovery case in the U. KA law that was submitted in September 2024 will decide how the belongings are shared. The case is set for January 2026.
Yang Yuhua from Thornhill Legal said that Qian’s guilty plea ” indirectly supports the fraud claims in China,” but mentioned that it is unlikely to get back the increased value of Bitcoin.
Courts usually prioritize getting back the original amount of money and a fair amount of interest instead of focusing on risky profits.
130,000 Chinese people are having a hard time getting back their lost Bitcoin
About 130,000 people in China are affected, including many small investors who don’t know much about digital finance. This makes it harder to organize and keep track of everything.
Ding said it’s been hard to communicate well because many victims have not gone to school much and don’t know much about computers.
Qian, who had said she was innocent, said she left China to get away from a government crackdown on people in the cryptocurrency business.
She is set to be sentenced in November, with another person, Hok Seng Ling, who also admitted to his crime.
It has been reported that attacks on people who own Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are increasing quickly, based on new information from Jameson Lopp, one of the founders of CASA.
Since late February, there have been 35 new violent events around the world, which is a 169% rise in just six and a half months.
The increase adds to a concerning pattern, as cryptocurrency markets keep going up.
