Investors Defrauded in Zhimin Qian Case Contest UK Proposal for Seized Bitcoin

TL;DR:

• Victims of a Chinese fraud ask the UK High Court to reject a compensation plan over 61,000 Bitcoin seized by authorities.
• The Bitcoin confiscated in 2018 are worth around £3.2 billion today, and victims fear they may not receive a share of the gains from price appreciation.
• Law firm Candey represents 5,700 affected individuals, with fees capped at 18% of recovered funds.

Victims of a Chinese investment scam brought their dispute to the UK High Court to oppose a compensation scheme proposed by British authorities. The case centres on the 61,000 Bitcoin seized during a police raid in 2018 at a London property. Those assets, confiscated as part of a money laundering investigation, are worth approximately £3.2 billion (around $4.3 billion) today, following a sharp appreciation since the time of seizure.

The fraud in question operated between 2014 and 2017 and affected more than 128,000 investors in China, according to court documents cited by the Financial Times. The defrauded funds were converted into BTC and moved abroad before being detected by authorities.

Law firm Candey, which represents around 5,700 victims, argues that the proposed compensation plan — based on a Chinese restitution scheme — does not guarantee fair compensation. The firm maintains that the UK court process offers victims the best path to recovering their losses.

Bitcoin Restitution Could Benefit Only a Few

The prosecution, for its part, warned that some of the ongoing legal claims could allow a subset of victims and their litigation funders to recover amounts exceeding their actual losses. Martin Evans KC, representing the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the court that such claims could benefit “a small subgroup of victims and their litigation funders“, leaving other claimants and the Crown without redress. Candey clarified that its fees are capped at 18% of any funds recovered.

The case has a preliminary hearing date in July, at which the court will need to determine whether English or Chinese law governs the claims over the seized Bitcoin. The High Court also set 22 May as the deadline for claimants to submit their recovery applications under Section 281.

Jian Wen, who attempted to purchase a luxury London mansion using Bitcoin without being able to justify the origin of the funds, was convicted of money laundering. Zhimin Qian, identified as the ringleader of the scheme, received a sentence of more than 11 years in prison in the United Kingdom in November 2025.