Liquidators for the collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital have sued co-founder Zhu Su's wife, Evelyn Tao Yaqiong, for about US$40 million from a Dubai villa allegedly bought with company crypto, in the latest aggressive move to recover assets for creditors. The villa was purchased in 2022 for around AED110 million, roughly US$30 million, using funds linked to an alleged US$50 million cryptocurrency loan from Three Arrows Capital to Zhu, and sold in January 2024 for about AED146 million, generating proceeds of around US$40 million that the liquidators now want back.
According to court filings, ownership of the property was transferred to Dr Tao in October 2023, while Zhu was serving a prison sentence in Singapore for contempt of court after failing to comply with orders requiring him to disclose information about the fund's assets. The liquidators allege the transfer was made without payment and was designed to place the asset beyond the reach of creditors, and that Zhu failed to disclose the Dubai property despite his obligations during the liquidation process. The villa itself had been purchased about three weeks before a court placed Three Arrows Capital into liquidation in June 2022, following the fund's collapse in the Terra-LUNA implosion that left creditors with claims exceeding US$3 billion.
Dr Tao has denied the allegations and is seeking to have the claim dismissed, maintaining in court filings that she had no knowledge of any alleged misuse of Three Arrows Capital assets or breach of fiduciary duty by her husband. She holds a PhD in biology from the National University of Singapore, previously worked at the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, and co-founded a company where she serves as chief science officer.
The Dubai villa is only one front in the liquidators' campaign. Teneo, the court-appointed liquidator, has pursued a global freeze on US$1.14 billion in assets belonging to Zhu, his co-founder Kyle Davies and Davies' wife, and has scrutinised a portfolio of Singapore luxury properties, including a Dalvey Road mansion Tao sold for S$38.5 million in 2024 and a Yarwood Avenue bungalow she converted into an urban farm. Each action has reinforced the liquidators' central argument: that the founders treated the fund's assets as a personal treasury even as it slid toward insolvency. For creditors still waiting to be made whole years after the collapse, the Dubai villa represents one of the most concrete targets yet in the long effort to claw back what was lost.