The billionaire founder and chief executive of Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com, Richard Liu, has been arrested in Minnesota on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct.

He was arrested shortly before midnight on Friday and was released just after 4pm on Saturday, according to Hennepin county sheriff’s office. Its website showed Liu was “released pending complaint”. Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said an investigation was ongoing and declined to provide details of the arrest.

JD.com is one of China’s tech heavyweights, competing with larger rival Alibaba. Liu is well known in China and has a net worth of $7.9bn, according to Forbes.

JD.com, backed by Walmart, Google, and China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd, said in a statement on Sunday that Liu, whose Chinese name is Liu Qiangdong, was falsely accused.

“During a business trip to the United States, Mr Liu was questioned by police in Minnesota in relation to an unsubstantiated accusation,” the company said. “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,” it said.

The company did not immediately provide further details, and Liu could not immediately be reached by Reuters.

The University of Minnesota said Liu was a student in its doctor of business administration program, which primarily takes place in Beijing in partnership with Tsinghua University and is aimed at full-time executives. The students were in the Twin Cities last week as part of their training.

University spokeswoman Emma Bauer in a statement declined to comment further and referred questions to Minneapolis police.