Thousands of Chinese victims of an investment scam are calling on Beijing to pressure the UK to return more than £3 billion worth of confiscated Bitcoin .
The victims' group, representing those defrauded in the £5 billion fraud of Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology, has collected signatures from nearly 2,500 victims and sent petitions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Works. Chinese security. They asked the government to intervene and negotiate with the UK to recover the Bitcoins purchased with their money.
The case stems from the conviction of Jian Wen, a woman with dual British and Chinese nationality, at Southwark Crown Court. Wen was convicted of assisting Zhimin Qian, the mastermind of the fraud, money laundering through Bitcoin. Qian defrauded more than 128,000 Chinese investors between 2014 and 2017 before fleeing to London under a fake identity.
In 2018, London police confiscated 61,000 Bitcoins, worth more than 3 billion pounds, from Qian and Wen's mansion. This is one of the world's largest cryptocurrency seizures.
The victim group affirmed that they are the "legal owners" of these Bitcoins and called on the Chinese government to provide evidence to the British side.
Currently, the UK side has not announced a plan to handle the confiscated Bitcoin. The victims' group hopes Britain will XEM compensation claims based on the evidence they have provided to Chinese authorities.
The victim group's petition said they had "suffered extremely serious economic losses, leading to family breakdown, separation of children, debt and no money for medical treatment."
Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy in London has not yet commented.
