UK Court Ruling Boosts Government's Chances of Keeping $5 Billion in Seized Bitcoin

The decision concerns 61,000 bitcoins seized by the Metropolitan Police in its investigation into Zhimin Qian, who confessed to defrauding thousands of people in China.

A London court has boosted the British government's chances of keeping more of the 3.8 billion pounds ($5 billion) of seized bitcoin worth $83,696.96 BTC, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, after ruling that thousands of Chinese fraud victims could not use UK law to claim the coins.

The decision concerns 61,000 bitcoins seized by London's Metropolitan Police in its investigation into Ximin Qian, who has admitted defrauding thousands of people in China.

Through his company, Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology, Qian ran a massive Ponzi scheme, defrauding more than 128,000 investors between 2014 and 2017. He converted billions of stolen dollars into Bitcoin and fled to the UK in 2017.

The victims had argued that the UK law should apply because it could have allowed them to claim ownership rights over the multibillion-pound digital currency fortune. However, in a ruling on Monday, Mr Justice Mark Turner of the High Court in London sided with British authorities, ruling that because the underlying fraud took place entirely in China, Chinese law, not English law, should govern the victims' claims.

"The relevant damage occurred in China. The applicants separated their money in China. The fraudulent claims were made in China," the judge said. "The resulting contractual relationships were entered into in China. The immediate economic consequences of the alleged violations were also suffered in China."

Note that this ruling does not ultimately decide who gets to keep the bitcoins, but it narrows the way for victims to recover them and increases the chances of the UK Treasury eventually keeping the seized bitcoins.

According to the FT, lawyers for the victims are appealing. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says a further hearing will determine whether victims can show interest in Bitcoin.

Across the Atlantic, seized bitcoins are already institutionalized as part of national balance sheets. The United States created a strategic bitcoin reserve in March 2025, which includes bitcoins and other coins seized in enforcement actions. Not a single token was earned with taxpayer money. According to Arkham Intelligence, addresses linked to the US government hold $25.8 billion in digital currencies.

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