Technical Paper Reveals How Chinese Police Seize Bitcoin

China has comprehensively banned cryptocurrency trading since 2021, but Bitcoin and Ether are still frequently used in fraud, online gambling and money laundering. Because control of the assets depends on private keys, public security authorities must crack seized phones or hardware wallets and trace onchain fund flows to prevent suspects from transferring assets remotely.

Personnel from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department and the Wenzhou Public Security Bureau published a paper in Forensic Science and Technology on June 4, 2026, which media disclosed on July 1. The paper said police can crack hardware, use OCR to search photo albums for seed phrases, and trace Gas Fee payments, cross-chain transfers and coin-mixing transactions before moving assets into a police-controlled multisignature wallet. It did not disclose the value of assets actually seized.