Richard Liu's Arresting Incident

Richard Liu Qiandong's mug shot at the police station

 The story of how a Chinese billionaire was arrested for alleged sexual assault in the United States is a curious one.

Richard Liu Qiandong, chairman and chief executive of JD.com, an e-commerce site, was arrested in Minneapolis on August 31 and brought to the Hennepin County police station and booked at 11.32pm.

What's interesting is that JD.com tried to brush off the incident, saying the 45-year-old was released without charges, nor did he have to post bail. As a result he returned to China, though the company didn't specify when.

Liu and his wife Zhang Zetian or "Sister Milk Tea"

However, the police there are saying they are still investigating the incident without disclosing more information. They said there were no travel restrictions imposed on Liu, who was apparently in the American city to attend the residency component of a business-education program conducted by the University of Minnesota.

This is not the first time Liu has been embroiled, though indirectly in another sexual assault case -- in 2015 he had a house party in his penthouse in Sydney and a guest there, Xu Longwei, was convicted in July this year for sexually assaulting a fellow guest at a hotel after the party.

While there was no accusation of any misconduct by Liu, the billionaire lost a legal bid to keep his name out of the records in Australia.

Chinese cyberspace was busy with the news of the arrest and subsequent release of Liu. They were surprised that his mugshot was publicly available and wondered what his wife, Zhang Zetian thought of the whole incident.

Many of Ma's supporters posted pictures of him laughing

She's also well known in the media. Zhang became famous as a student, nicknamed "Sister Milk Tea" after posing with a cup of milk tea, and the pictures widely spread on social media. Liu met Zhang when she was studying in the United States and they married three years ago.

Before his arrest, Liu said in a previous interview that he did not marry Zhang for her looks, saying, "I am face blind. I can't tell who is pretty and who is not."

One internet user joked, "Maybe he mistook the other woman for Sister Milk Tea. He is face blind, after all."

Ouch.

In the last few years JD.com has become a formidable competitor to Alibaba, chasing the same group of affluent internet shoppers.

There is no love lost between Liu and Jack Ma Yun, with Liu accusing Alibaba of selling fakes online, while Ma claimed JD.com would end in "tragedy" because its business model was excessively labour and capital intensive.

But it looks like Ma won this round -- when news of Liu's arrest was heard, Ma's online supporters posted pictures of him laughing.