JD.com CEO released after US arrest

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Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said its founder and CEO Liu Qiangdong was falsely accused after he was arrested in the US for criminal sexual conduct.

The 45-year-old Chinese billionaire, also known as Richard Liu, was arrested in Minnesota on Friday night and was "released pending complaint" on Saturday morning, Hennepin County Jail records show.

Hennepin County Jail records show that a suspect named Liu Qiang Dong was charged over criminal sexual conduct. /Screenshot of the official website of Hennepin County police

"During a business trip to the US, Mr. Liu was questioned by police in Minnesota in relation to an unsubstantiated accusation," JD.com said in a statement released Saturday afternoon on Weibo, Chinese Twitter-like social platform.

"The local police quickly determined there was no substance to the claim against Mr. Liu, and he was subsequently able to resume his business activities as originally planned," the statement read.

No details of the case have been released, but local police said they had the "probable cause" of the criminal conduct, which enabled them to arrest the suspect at the scene under the US law.

John Elder, public information officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, told Financial Times: “The investigation is ongoing.”

He added that the police had continued to hold Liu and local rules would have required the department to file a complaint by Tuesday midday.

Liu Qiangdong addressed the audiences at the 90th-anniversary celebration of his high school – Suqian High School in eastern China's Jiangsu Province – on Oct. 28, 2017. /VCG Photo

The case involved Liu and a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota, Financial Time reported, citing "two people with direct knowledge of the matter."

According to screenshots of a WeChat group, the student has been looking for legal aid among fellow students from the Law School of the university.

Liu is registered as a student in the university's Carlson School of Management China doctor of business administration program, a university spokeswoman told Star Tribute on Sunday. Program participants were in the Twin Cities from Aug. 26 through Saturday as part of their residency, she said.

This is not the first time for Liu to be involved in a sexual misconduct case.

At a family-party organized by Liu in Australia in 2015, a man sexually assaulted a woman and was later convicted. Liu was not charged with any wrongdoing in this case, "he is familiar with neither of them," said a lawyer statement reposted by JD.com's Weibo account on July 25.

Liu Qiangdong and his wife Zhang Zetian attend the warm-party before their wedding ceremony on Oct. 1, 2015. /VCG Photo

Liu was married in 2015 to 24-year-old online celebrity Zhang Zetian, who gave birth to Liu's second child in 2016.

His net worth was estimated by Forbes magazine on Sunday at 7.9 billion US dollars, ranking no.95 across the globe.