Chinese victims may only recover the principal from 61,000 bitcoins in the Qian Zhimin case.

Article by Bin Ge

On October 12, the UK High Court ruled on over 61,000 bitcoins involved in the Tianjin Blue Sky Ge Rui illegal fundraising case: the property rights claims of Chinese victims shall be determined under Chinese law.

These bitcoins were purchased in 2014 at an average price of RMB 2,815 each; today, each is worth approximately RMB 5.6 million, with a total value exceeding RMB 34 billion. However, Chinese law does not recognize bitcoin as property, so approximately 16,000 registered Chinese victims are unlikely to recover anything beyond their principal and interest, and will not share in the 200-fold appreciation.

The story begins ten years ago, in a hotel banquet hall in Tianjin, where a woman was wheeled onto the stage.

In the late autumn of 2016, in a banquet hall at a hotel in Tianjin, over a thousand people held their breath in anticipation.

The lights dimmed, music began to play, and a woman draped in a pale pink veil was wheeled onto the stage. The scene was absurd—reminiscent of a cult baptism or some dark twist on a reality show—yet no one in the audience found it strange. Among them were retired teachers, small business owners, and a doctor who had invested 12 million. They were all waiting for “Sister Hua” to speak.

Sister Hua’s real name is Qian Zhimin, but within the Tianjin Lan Tian Ge Rui system, no one calls her by her real name. She has several identities: “Hua Hua,” “Sister Hua,” “Zhang Yadi,” and “Li Xia.” Regardless of what she’s called, to these people, she is always the same role: the Goddess of Wealth.

Her slogan is printed on all promotional materials: "Give Grex three years, and Grex will give you three generations of prosperity."

The audience below firmly believed it.

Lantian Gerui’s operational model was not new: raising funds, promising high returns, and using new investments to pay off old ones. Established in Tianjin in March 2014, it operated seven regional business units and issued ten wealth management products, promising returns of one to three times the principal. At its peak, this scheme attracted over 120,000 investors and raised more than 40 billion yuan in total.

But Hua Jie did something that almost no other Ponzi scheme operator of her time had ever thought of.

She took a large sum of money and bought Bitcoin on Huobi.

In 2014, she bought at least 61,000 bitcoins at an average price of approximately RMB 2,815 per coin. Evidence from a UK court suggests that the total number of bitcoins she handled may have reached up to 190,000, with approximately 120,000 still unaccounted for.

What did Bitcoin mean in 2014? There were no ETFs, no BlackRock; the entire market was still reeling from the aftermath of the Mt. Gox collapse. Most Chinese investors couldn’t even explain the difference between Bitcoin and Q Coins. Sister Hua probably didn’t understand Bitcoin’s technical principles, but she understood one thing: it was anonymous, portable, and invisible to authorities.

From a criminal perspective, this is a genius-level asset transfer operation. From an investment perspective, it may have been the most successful purchase globally over the past decade.

But it’s all made using other people’s hard-earned money.

In July 2017, Lan Tian Ge Rui ceased redemptions. 120,000 investors discovered that the promise of "three generations of wealth" lasted less than three months.

Sister Hua has disappeared.

She fled to the UK using a forged passport under the name "Zhang Yadi," taking the 61,000 bitcoins with her. By the end of 2017, the price of each bitcoin had risen from RMB 2,815 to over RMB 100,000.

In the UK, Sister Hua did not keep a low profile. In 2018, she attempted to purchase a £23.5 million mansion in Hampstead, London, using Bitcoin. The transaction fell through at the final stage due to "unexplained source of funds." This detail later became the starting point for British police investigations.

In May 2021, UK police seized approximately 61,000 bitcoins in her name, valued at over £3 billion at the time, marking the largest cryptocurrency seizure in global law enforcement history. British media dubbed her “The Bitcoin Queen.”

In April 2024, Sister Hua was arrested in Yorkshire under a false identity. In September 2025, she pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London. In November of the same year, she was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months.

In China, the Tianjin court issued sentences in September 2021 for accomplices who remained in the country: Ren Jiangtao received 10 years, and Huang Yafang received 5 years. In 2023, domestic victims received two rounds of restitution: 8% in May and an additional 5% in October.

Invested 100 yuan, received back 13 yuan.

What truly evoked mixed emotions happened on October 12, 2026.

Those 61,000 bitcoins, valued at 2,815 yuan each in 2014, were worth approximately 560,000 yuan each on this day—an increase of nearly 200 times. The total value of the 61,000 bitcoins exceeded 34 billion RMB, nearly approaching Lan Tian Ge Rui’s total fundraising of 40 billion RMB that year. Much of the money lost in the scam had, through Bitcoin’s dramatic surge, been recovered.

But can the victims actually get it?

According to Caixin, the UK High Court issued a key ruling today: the property rights claims of approximately 16,000 Chinese victims who registered claims through the UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) process should be governed by Chinese law, not UK law.

The difference is fatal.

Under English law, Bitcoin is classified as "property," allowing victims to claim ownership of the Bitcoin itself, including its full value after a 200-fold appreciation. However, Chinese law does not recognize Bitcoin as property, and judicial rulings involving cryptocurrencies typically only support the return of the original investment plus interest.

You put in $100 back then, and Sister Hua used that $100 to buy Bitcoin, which went up to $20,000. But the law only recognizes your original $100 plus a little interest. That $19,900 gain? Not yours.

On October 12, that message was like a bucket of cold water in countless rights-protection WeChat groups.

There’s another even more unsettling detail.

The UK has an asset recovery incentive scheme called ARIS. Under this system, if recovered criminal assets have no legitimate claimant, 50% goes to the UK Treasury.

Put these pieces together: 16,000 Chinese victims can, under Chinese law, recover only their principal plus interest; the portion of the Bitcoin’s 200-fold appreciation, due to the absence of any "legally recognized claimant," has a high likelihood of flowing into the UK treasury.

The victim’s money bought Bitcoin, which increased 200-fold—and the gains went to another country’s treasury. No novelist would dare write such a plot.

The ruling has not yet been finalized. The court explicitly stated that further review of evidence and legal details is required to determine whether Chinese victims can acquire property rights to the involved bitcoins under Chinese law. The parties may also apply for an appeal.

But the direction is already clear.

Ponzi schemes have existed for thousands of years, reappearing every few years under a new guise—nothing new here. The cruelty of this case lies in the fact that the victims’ hard-earned money inadvertently participated in the highest-return transaction globally over the past decade: buying Bitcoin at 2,815 yuan and seeing it rise to 560,000 yuan—a 200-fold gain. Yet, they will most likely never see that profit.

Sister Hua is serving time in prison, while 16,000 victims await a difficult appeal. 61,000 bitcoins remain quietly held in government custody accounts in the UK, their value continuing to fluctuate and grow each day.

In the end, there is only one winner.