China Opens Confiscation Case Targeting Qian Zhimin's 61,896 Bitcoin Fortune

Published October 14, 2026, 04:55 UTC. Based on the Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court notice as reported by ODAILY and ME News on October 14, 2026, a KuCoin flash summary citing ODAILY, cryptofox.news, and MABOnChain's earlier coverage of the October 12 UK High Court ruling and the Qian Zhimin case.

China's Second Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin announced on October 13 that it accepted a case filed by the Second Branch of the Tianjin People's Procuratorate seeking the confiscation of the bitcoin and other assets tied to fugitive fraud suspect Qian Zhimin, one of the largest crypto forfeiture cases ever opened.

The Article 299 filing

The court said it accepted the case on September 28, finding preliminary evidence that Qian committed fundraising fraud and confirming its jurisdiction because the scheme's main activities were in Tianjin's Hedong district, according to the notice as reported by ODAILY and ME News. The case was filed under Article 299 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, which sets the procedure for confiscating illegal gains when a suspect or defendant has fled or died. The procuratorate argues Qian fled China and has been wanted for more than a year without appearing in this proceeding, and that the bitcoin and other property seized in the UK are illegal gains and their proceeds, aside from amounts to be returned to investors.

61,896 bitcoin, plus every bitcoin fork

Court filings list 61,896.41552945 bitcoin at the center of the application, a stash worth roughly $5.1 billion at a price of about $83,000 per coin. The forfeiture list goes further: about 72,700 bitcoin cash, 72,700 bitcoin gold and 72,700 bitcoin satoshi's vision, the three forked coins that dropped into Qian's wallets after the bitcoin splits, plus roughly 3.606 million XRP, 70,081,200 dogecoin, cash in US dollars, euros and pounds sterling, jewelry, bank balances and investment portfolios.

The Dogecoin already sits in an interest-bearing account

One line of the asset list shows how far the international coordination has already gone: the dogecoin has been converted by UK judicial authorities and deposited into an interest-bearing account, according to the notice as reported by ODAILY. That means part of the forfeiture pool is already liquidated, earning interest, and sitting under UK custodial control while the two countries' courts argue over who it belongs to.

Fled and wanted for over a year

Qian fled China in July 2017 after a scheme run through Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology that investigators say collected more than 40 billion yuan from at least 128,000 investors between 2014 and 2017, part of which was converted into bitcoin through the Huobi exchange and over-the-counter trades. She was arrested in York in April 2024, pleaded guilty to money laundering in the UK in November 2025, and was sentenced to 11 years and eight months, and she has never faced trial in the Chinese case she fled.

The $5.1 billion fortune and 16,000 claimants

The Chinese filing lands one day after London's High Court ruled that Chinese law, not English law, will decide whether thousands of fraud victims hold property rights over the more than 61,000 bitcoin seized by the Metropolitan Police, a threshold ruling that leaves 16,000 claimants to prove their ownership rights under Chinese law. The October 12 judgment resolved only the choice-of-law question, and UK prosecutors have argued the coins are criminal property tied to the Chinese fraud. Victims in China have already received two rounds of court-ordered repayments at 5% and 8% rates, and British prosecutors say many have received partial relief under Chinese compensation schemes. China is now asking its own courts to take formal title to the fortune, which could decide how much of the $5.1 billion ever reaches the victims, and how much the state keeps.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Second Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin, court notice announced October 13, 2026, primary source for the September 28 acceptance of the Article 299 confiscation case, the 61,896.41552945 bitcoin figure, the full asset list and the jurisdiction finding, reported via ODAILY and ME News
• ODAILY via ME News, reported October 14, 2026, primary source for the notice text, the procuratorate's filing by the Second Branch of the Tianjin People's Procuratorate, the fugitive framing and the dogecoin conversion into an interest-bearing account
• KuCoin flash summary citing ODAILY (October 14, 2026), secondary source for the asset-by-asset forfeiture list including the forked coins, XRP, dogecoin, cash, jewelry and portfolios
• cryptofox.news, "China Seizes 61,896 Bitcoin in Fraud Case: Qian Zhimin" (October 14, 2026), secondary source for the Article 299 legal mechanism and the Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court statements
• MABOnChain, "UK High Court Rules Chinese Law Applies to 61,000 Bitcoin in Qian Zhimin Fraud Case" (October 13, 2026), secondary source for the October 12 choice-of-law ruling, the 16,000 claimants and the November 2025 sentencing to 11 years and eight months