9/11 Families File Claim Over US Bitcoin Holdings
The United States omitted material facts linking the Prince Group's seized BTC to the Iranian Government, 9/11 families say.
In October 2025, the United States announced that it had taken control over 127,271 BTC belonging to the Prince Group, alleged to have operated forced-labor scam compounds across Cambodia.
Immediately after publicizing the indictment of Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi, the US entered into forfeiture proceedings, attempting to make the coins the property of the United States Government.
The seized coins have been traced back to now-defunct Chinese Bitcoin mining pool LuBian, which had been used by Zhi to launder the scam proceeds, according to the United States.
A law firm representing families and victims of 9/11, who have previously been awarded over $90 Billion US Dollars in damages, are claiming that the coins should be given to them instead.
Their allegation: LuBian was a joint venture between China and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) setup to help the country evade sanctions – which the families say was omitted by the US Government.
The 9/11 families believe that these are not the only Iran-linked coins that the US Government has in its possession without disclosure.
L0la L33tz
"The United States' Claim for Forfeiture is Barred by the Doctrine of Unclean Hands"
Led by the widow of former FBI counter-terrorism chief John P. O'Neill, the families "deny each and every assertion of fact or law by the United States that the Defendant Cryptocurrency is in any way the property of the United States," according to the filing.
The families say that the Bitcoin were the property of "the Iran and China Investment Development Group," described as a joint venture between the criminal defendants and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was doing business as LuBian.
The group, according to the families, "partnered with the Iranian government to build a large Bitcoin mine in Rafsanjan, [...] to assist that country’s longstanding efforts to evade sanctions," the filing reads.
The families claim that the affected wallets were not exclusively controlled or owned by Zhi, stating that "at least 11,166.51 BTC of the Defendant Cryptocurrency are directly traceable to Bitcoin mined by the Iran-China Group," and "all of the Defendant Cryptocurrency constituted the Iran-China Group’s pool-level reserve of Bitcoin."
The families also believe the US Government to be in possession of more BTC linked to Iran: "The 9/11 Claimants deny that the table [...] identifies all of the Bitcoin owned by the Iran-China Group that is currently in the government’s possession."
But what do families of 9/11 have to do with Iran? The claim is filed on argumentation of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), setup in 2002 to establish a federal program that allows for the recovery of certain insured losses resulting from a certified act of terrorism.
Should the funds not be used to compensate 9/11 families, "it is required to be deposited into the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund," the filing states.
Citing the so-called "clean hands" doctrine, the United States could lose its claim on the BTC even if the 9/11 victim's claim would be denied – a defense strategy that penalizes the engagement in bad faith, deceit, or misconduct.
According to the 9/11 families, the US deliberately concealed the IRGC's involvement in LuBian: "The United States omitted material information regarding the connections between the Defendant Cryptocurrency and the Islamic Republic of Iran."
L0la L33tz
Who Was LuBian, and Who Took Their BTC?
Whether or not the 9/11 families' claim can hold up in court appears to depend entirely on whether LuBian was indeed a venture ran in cooperation with the Iranian Government – and those claims all seem to be conflicting, depending on who is asked.
The United States claims that LuBian was a Chinese mining pool that operated in Iran, while LuBian itself describes itself as "an unincorporated collective of software engineers [...] doing business through, among other means, the website lubian.com".
LuBian was once one of the largest Bitcoin mining operations in the world, having controlled around 6% of hashrate, according to Elliptic. In February 2021, LuBian disappeared.
The blockchain surveillance firm Arkham Intelligence revealed in 2025 that LuBian had fallen victim to the largest cryptocurrency hack ever recorded – larger than both the Mt. Gox and Bitfinex hacks in nominal value – with over 127,000 coins having been stolen in a brute-force attack resulting from weak entropy, reportedly accounting for all of LuBian's holdings.
Two months later, the forfeiture complaint reveals that the Bitcoin is "now stored at addresses controlled by the [US] government."
While the original forfeiture complaint provides detailed tracing attributing the Bitcoin to Zhi and LuBian, it appears to provide no information on how the coins ended up in the US Government's control.
In November of last year, China's cybersecurity agency reportedly accused the United States of hacking LuBian to steal its bitcoin. The US denies the allegations. Ironically, LuBian itself has filed as a claimant in the forfeiture proceedings, stating that they had been hacked by "unknown persons."
The case around Prince Group's bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency seizure in Dollar terms – worth around $9.7 Billion at the time of writing.
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