Beijing OTC Boss Song Shijie Loses UK/US Assets Over Scam

The recent case of enforcement of Song Shijie has come to light today, on September 5, 2025. He was previously the largest over-the-counter (OTC) margin trading boss in Beijing. Caixin reports that Shijie has already handed over close to 200 million yuan to the UK and the US authorities. This is approximately 27.5 million USD of assets! Let’s look at it from a closer perspective:

UK Seizure of London Assets

The National Crime Agency (NCA) of the UK affirmed the seizure of about 161 million yuan (equivalent to 22.7 million USD) worth of assets belonging to Song. These included:

• Westminster luxury home.
• Six apartments in Hendon
• Funds in a UK bank account

Laundering dirty money through London property markets has also been on the radar of regulators, and this case highlights how the city has become a center of high-value financial crime. On the other side of the Atlantic, US officials attacked Shijie’s cryptocurrency assets. A March 2025 Orlando, Florida, court filing describes how Song lost three Binance accounts containing 10 million USD.

Links to Crypto Fraud

The case is especially interesting as it demonstrates the meeting of the archaic financial fraud with the crypto fraud. Song was involved in illegal securities trading and OTC margin lending in China. Moreover, Shijie also found himself caught up in pig butchering crypto scams, which have seen a massive global expansion in the last few years.

US statistics showed that investment fraud linked to pig butchering swindles led to losses amounting to 3.9 billion in 2023, a nearly 2,000 per cent increase since 2019. The fact that Binance accounts belonging to Song have been frozen indicates that law enforcement agencies can now track and confiscate crypto assets associated with such activities with greater ease.

Why The Shijie Case Matters?

• Worth of Assets: It is the biggest cross-border seizure of crypto-linked fraud in the last few years with a total worth of over 32 million USD.
• International Cooperation: Additionally, the UK NCA, the US courts, and the joint operation with the Ministry of Public Security in China all help to bring one of the very few three-way operations against illegal financial flow to the fore.
• Spotlight on Pig Butchering: By connecting the case to a scam that victims also globally fall prey to, regulators shed further light on one of the most harmful fraud trends in crypto.

This case would impact regulatory trends around the world. The MiCA framework has already enhanced control within the EU, and regulators in the US have pressured exchanges to improve compliance. China’s role is also an indication that Beijing is now more than willing to cooperate with other countries to deal with capital flight and illegal crypto activities.

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