A network engineer was accused of stealing funds from a gambling website; police in two different locations subsequently opened cases and seized 183 bitcoins.

On January 20th, Li Dong (pseudonym), an IT professional from Shenzhen, was placed under surveillance by police in Hunan and Henan provinces. A large amount of Bitcoin was discovered in his cryptocurrency wallet. Police in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, and Changge, Henan, both opened investigations against Li Dong, charging him with "operating a gambling den." Zhangjiajie police seized over 100 Bitcoins from Li Dong's account, which were converted into over 40 million RMB; Henan police seized 80 Bitcoins, with a market value exceeding 40 million RMB. Later, Li Dong was not convicted of "operating a gambling den," but was prosecuted by the Changge City Procuratorate in Henan for theft and infringement of citizens' personal information. In January 2026, the case was publicly heard in the Changge City Court. After a recess, the court stated that it would reconvene at a later date. Li Dong, born in the 1980s, is a network information security engineer who majored in information security in university. He worked for several well-known internet companies in network security technology before settling in Shenzhen, where he recently started his own internet company. According to his family, Li Dong began trading stocks and cryptocurrencies around 2016, acquiring some Bitcoin. However, later police investigations suggested that his Bitcoin originated from other sources. In September 2024, the Zhangjiajie Public Security Bureau in Hunan Province summoned Li Dong on suspicion of "operating a casino." It turned out that in May of that year, Zhangjiajie police opened an investigation into an online gambling case based on an "anonymous tip," and Li Dong was listed as a suspect. Zhangjiajie police seized 103 Bitcoins from Li Dong's digital wallet, converting them into over 49.61 million yuan. Li Dong was quickly released on bail. However, the charge against him on the seizure decision and bail documents changed from "operating a casino" to "illegally obtaining data from a computer information system." (The Paper)