Kuaishou Ex-Executive Embezzled $20M Through Bitcoin, Marking China’s Biggest Tech Corruption Case

Feng Dian, a former mid-level executive at Kuaishou, has been sentenced to 14 years and six months in prison by the Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing. Kuaishou, widely recognized as China's second-largest short-video platform, has been at the center of one of the country's largest corporate embezzlement scandals involving cryptocurrencies.

Feng was convicted of embezzling approximately 140 million RMB (about $20 million USD) during his tenure at Kuaishou and laundering the funds through Bitcoin transactions. The case sets a new record for financial misconduct in China’s tech industry.

Before joining Kuaishou, Feng built a promising career at major firms such as Didi and Procter & Gamble. His downfall came at Kuaishou, where his control over subsidy programs gave him near-complete authority in policy design, implementation, and oversight. This closed loop of power enabled him to orchestrate one of the most audacious fraud schemes in recent memory.

Elaborate Scheme: Subsidy Fraud and Cryptocurrency Laundering

The court found that Feng colluded with external suppliers who were personally connected to him. During the design of Kuaishou’s subsidy programs, Feng deliberately left loopholes and leaked confidential internal operational data to trusted suppliers.

With this information, these suppliers submitted tailored but fraudulent applications that redirected subsidy funds meant for legitimate merchants into their own accounts. Within less than a year, Feng and his group siphoned off 140 million RMB from Kuaishou’s corporate budget.

The embezzled funds were laundered through a complex financial web. Suppliers created multiple shell companies to receive the subsidies. Once the money entered these accounts, it was layered through transfers and ultimately moved into hidden bank accounts controlled by Feng’s associates.

The group then used eight different overseas cryptocurrency exchanges to convert the funds into Bitcoin and other digital assets. To obscure the trail, they relied on mixing services and multi-hop transfers. Some of the laundered crypto was eventually cashed out back into RMB and funneled into personal and corporate accounts under their control.

China's Crypto Crackdown: Recovery and Legal Consequences

Despite China’s blanket ban on cryptocurrency trading since 2021, the group evaded detection for years. However, Chinese authorities leveraged advanced blockchain tracing technologies in cooperation with overseas platforms to identify the hidden funds. More than 90 Bitcoin, valued at roughly 89 million RMB (about 11.7 million USD at the time of trial), were seized and returned to Kuaishou.

Feng’s seven co-conspirators received prison sentences ranging from three to fourteen years, along with fines, for their involvement in the occupational embezzlement.

The Haidian Procuratorate noted that between 2020 and 2024, there were over 1,200 commercial corruption cases in Beijing, with a rising share linked to cryptocurrencies. Feng’s 140 million RMB case stands out as the largest on record among China’s internet giants.

It highlights not only the risks posed by unchecked internal control systems in tech firms but also China’s growing capabilities in tracing illicit crypto transactions through blockchain analysis and international collaboration.