BlockBeats News, January 20th, Shenzhen IT man Li Dong (alias) was targeted by the police in both Hunan and Henan provinces. A large amount of Bitcoin was found in his cryptocurrency wallet. The public security organs in Zhangjiajie City, Hunan, and Changge City, Henan, have both filed investigations against Li Dong, with the suspected crime being “running a gambling operation.” The Zhangjiajie police seized over one hundred Bitcoins from Li Dong’s account, converted into over 40 million RMB; the Henan police seized 80 of his Bitcoins, with a market value of over 40 million RMB. Later, Li Dong was not found guilty of “running a gambling operation.” Instead, he was prosecuted by the Changge City Procuratorate in Henan on charges of theft and infringement of citizens’ personal information. In January 2026, the case was publicly heard in the Changge City Court. After the adjournment, the court stated that a date for a retrial would be scheduled.
The “post-80s” Li Dong is a network security engineer who majored in information security in college. He has worked in network security technology at several well-known Internet companies and later settled in Shenzhen, starting his own Internet company in recent years. According to his family, around 2016, Li Dong began trading stocks and cryptocurrencies, accumulating some Bitcoin. However, the police later found that the source of his Bitcoin was from another “channel.” In September 2024, the Zhangjiajie City Public Security Bureau in Hunan summoned Li Dong on suspicion of “running a gambling operation.” It turned out that in May of that year, based on an “anonymous tip-off,” the Zhangjiajie police filed a case to investigate an online gambling case, with Li Dong listed as a criminal suspect. The Zhangjiajie police seized 103 Bitcoins from Li Dong’s digital wallet, amounting to over 49.61 million RMB. Soon after, Li Dong was released on bail. However, on the seizure decision and bail pending trial documents, the crime Li Dong was suspected of changed from “running a gambling operation” to “illegally obtaining computer information system data.”
In July 2025, the Changge City Procuratorate filed a public prosecution against Li Dong on charges of theft and infringement of citizens’ personal information. On January 5, 2026, the case was publicly heard in the Changge City Court. According to the prosecution, in 2020, Li Dong used a loophole in the server program of the overseas online gambling website “Kaiyun Sports” to technically steal personal information of over 1.84 million Chinese citizens from the gambling website, involving people from Xuchang and Changge. In addition to the accusation of infringing on citizens’ personal information, the prosecution also believed that Li Dong stole funds from the gambling website, constituting theft. According to individuals present at the trial, Li Dong’s defense lawyer pleaded not guilty on his behalf. The prosecution stated that the facts of Li Dong committing theft and infringing on citizens’ personal information were clear, the evidence was true and sufficient, and he should be held accountable for multiple crimes and punished accordingly under the law. (The Paper News)
