Qian Zhimin victims cleared to appeal UK ruling on 61,000 seized BTC

A UK court on October 16 allowed about 16,000 Chinese victims of Qian Zhimin’s fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme to challenge an earlier ruling over roughly 61,000 seized bitcoin, now worth about $5 billion. The victims appealed after Justice Mark Turner ruled on October 12 that Chinese law, not English law, should govern their claims. Under English law they could claim the bitcoin and its gains; under Chinese law recovery is capped closer to principal and interest. Qian ran a Ponzi scheme through Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology from 2014 to 2017, fled to Britain in 2017 after converting customer funds into bitcoin, and received an 11-year sentence for fraud and money laundering.