According to STFIL, while some of the core team members were detained by Chinese police, FIL tokens were moved to an unknown wallet. They also acknowledged that there had been "abnormal, unscheduled upgrades to the protocol". They asked their community members for help in tracking the wallet.
Some speculated that the story was fake, and that the project had stolen the funds. However, Chinese police have in several instances cracked down on people and companies involved in Filecoin-related projects, including an $83.3 million alleged pyramid scheme in August 2023 and a group of Filecoin Ponzi schemers in 2021. Filecoin mining became popular in China after its 2018 initial coin offering, and also became a magnet for Ponzi schemes and other scams.