The story of AEX Huang Tianwei's arrest: from entrepreneurial myth to 180 days of international escape.

Huang Tianwei was one of the early exponents of China's cryptocurrency industry. In 2013, he founded the BitTimes Trading Platform, one of the first bitcoin trading platforms in China. (Summary: Chinese court: virtual currency contracts are illegal gambling!) BKEX Exchange employee sentenced for "opening a casino" (Background supplement: Chinese government cleans up NFTs!) Fujian Province issued a letter: NFT trading, exchanges to carry out related business) Khaosod English, a local Thai media, reported on June 12 that Thai immigration authorities arrested a 39-year-old Chinese man, Huang Tianwei, at Don Mueang International Airport while trying to board Lion Air flight SL100, and he was charged with a cryptocurrency fraud involving 200 million baht (about 44 million yuan). Huang Tianwei, the founder of AEX (Anyin Trading Platform), which once dominated the currency circle. In July 2022, the crypto trading platform AEX thundered and closed the withdrawal function, saying that due to short-term liquidity problems, it could not meet the user's withdrawal needs. The arrest not only unveiled the mystery of Huang Tianwei's whereabouts in recent years, but also brought the "thunderstorm" incident of the AEX trading platform back into the public eye. Huang Tianwei and the rise of AEX Huang Tianwei was one of the early exponents of China's cryptocurrency industry. In 2013, he founded the BitTimes Trading Platform, one of the first bitcoin trading platforms in China. At that time, the cryptocurrency market was still in a stage of wild growth, and the price of Bitcoin was highly volatile, attracting a large number of speculators and early investors. With its low commission and flexible trading mechanism, Bitera has quickly accumulated a user base and has become one of the trading platforms with a certain reputation. In 2018, Bitera changed its name to AEX (Anbank Trading Platform) and began to expand into the global market. AEX's focus on high-yield wealth management products and high-leverage trading has attracted a large number of retail investors. According to the X platform user @chaoge_btc, AEX had a huge number of users at its peak, and the platform claimed to have billions of dollars in assets under management. Huang Tianwei himself is also regarded as a legendary entrepreneur by the cryptocurrency circle because of his keen market sense and radical operation strategy. However, there are huge risks behind this high-yield model. AEX Thunderstorm and Huang Tianwei fled In 2021, the AEX trading platform began to have a liquidity crisis. According to user @0xwanchongshan, AEX closed the withdrawal function in 2022 due to "liquidity problems", resulting in a large number of users being unable to withdraw funds. Investors discovered that the high-yield wealth management products promised by the platform were actually Ponzi schemes, relying on new users' funds to pay interest on old users. When the market entered a bear market, the capital chain was broken, and AEX quickly fell into a run crisis. According to @chaoge_btc statistics, the AEX thunderstorm cost about 22,000 victims more than $20 million, of which he himself lost 147 bitcoins. AEX's thunderstorm triggered widespread rights defense actions, but Huang Tianwei "evaporated" at this time. In 2021, he was briefly detained by local police in Guigang, Guangxi, but was later released. According to user X, Huang Tianwei quickly fled to Thailand after his release, trying to escape accountability by living a low-key life. The incident has angered many victims, who have used social media to organize their rights and even pursue them across borders, with little success. The trigger for fraud in Thailand Huang Tianwei's life in Thailand has not been peaceful. On April 23, 2025, two Chinese nationals met with Huang Tianwei in Mae Sai District, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, to discuss a cryptocurrency investment cooperation. According to Thai police, the two victims were lured by Huang Tianwei to invest about 200 million baht in bitcoin with high returns. However, the funds quickly evaporated after the investment, and Huang Tianwei lost contact. The victim immediately reported the case to the Chiang Rai District Court, which issued an arrest warrant in April 2025 accusing Wong Tin Wai of major fraud. On June 12, Huang Tianwei was arrested by immigration authorities at Don Mueang International Airport in Thailand. During a routine airport inspection, Thai police arrested Huang Tianwei after discovering that his passport information matched a wanted warrant from a Chiang Rai court. At present, he has been transferred to the Mae Sai District Police Station in Chiang Rai Province for further investigation. On June 14, eight Chinese investors claiming to be victims of the AEX thunderstorm gathered in front of the Chiang Rai county police station to request a meeting with Huang, but police said the AEX thunderstorm had nothing to do with the Thai scam and refused to arrange a meeting. Archer Wolfe, founder of cryptocurrency consultancy MohrWolfe and a former Thai resident, predicted in an interview with Decrypto that "Huang Tianwei will most likely be extradited back to China, and the Thai government will confiscate the bitcoin, and unless they pay a ridiculously high fee, they will simply close the case." Once became a popular copycat trading platform According to public information, Huang Tianwei worked as a product manager and project manager at Tencent, once served as the vice president of Fantexy basketball manager, founded Byte Times in 2013, and was the hottest altcoin trading platform of that year, "the traffic of the Byte era at that time was second to kill Huobi, OKX and Bitcoin China at that time," tweet KOL Nangong Yuan wrote. Tianyan investigation shows that Shenzhen Times Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zhiwei Network Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Jiuyi Times Information Technology Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Huiqu Network Co., Ltd., where Huang Tianwei serves as the legal representative, have all been registered. Among them, Shenzhen Zhiwei Network Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Huang Tianwei that is related to the Byera era, has been listed in September 2021. According to an interview article report by the Southern Enterprise News Network, Huang Tianwei described his 10 years of financial experience, and his investments include dozens of enterprises such as Tianjin Shares, Bitcontinent, and Yixiang Network, and has also participated in leading cases such as Montage Technology M&A, State Grid Times Fundraising, and Ampron's backdoor borrowing. After the AEX thunderstorm, rights protection incidents on various social platforms have emerged one after another, some people have gone to their hometowns to defend their rights, and some rights defenders have graffiti and writing on the floor, and even put up banners. According to people familiar with the matter, the case was opened for investigation by the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment of the Guangxi Guigang Public Security Bureau, and Huang Tianwei was once arrested and later released. Related reports Another exchange thunderstorm! 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