Skip to main content

China's Biggest Ponzi Scheme Sentenced to Life.

A Beijing court has sentenced the owner of the firm behind China’s biggest online lending fraud to life in prison.

Ding Ning, the chairman of Yucheng Group, was also fined 100 million yuan ($15 million) for fundraising fraud, smuggling precious metals, and owning guns illegally, according to a judgment handed down by the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court on Tuesday.

Yucheng ultimately controls the Ezubo platform, which authorities allege had defrauded 900,000 people out of more than $7.6 billion. One other Yucheng executive was also jailed for life, while 24 were given jail terms of between three to 15 years.

He admitted on state television early last year that Ezubo -- which means easy-to-lease -- attracted money from investors by offering high interest rates. Almost 95 percent of the investment projects listed on the platform didn’t exist, and it ran a Ponzi scheme to pay off some investors. Authorities launched an investigation in December 2015 after finding signs of tight cash flow, and indications that executives had started to move funds and destroy evidence.

Ezubo was the biggest among a series of similar cases that prompted tighter regulation of China’s Internet finance industry last year. Policymakers imposed limits on peer-to-peer lending, and barred platforms from taking public deposits or selling wealth-management products.

The court also found Ding and Yucheng International Holdings Group guilty of smuggling precious metals, owning weapons and crossing borders illegally. Yucheng International, an affiliate of Yucheng Group, was fined 1.8 billion yuan, according to the judgment. Police are still trying to recoup some losses for investors, it said.

Culled from Bloomberg.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Windows 10 now on 600 million machines.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told shareholders that Windows 10 has now passed 600 million monthly active users, picking up 100 million since May of this year. This number counts all Windows 10 devices used over a 28-day period. While most of these will be PCs, there are other things in the mix there: a few million Xbox Ones, a few million Windows 10 Mobile phones, and special hardware like the HoloLens and Surface Hub. The exact mix between these categories isn't known, because Microsoft doesn't say. The company's original ambition (and sales pitch to developers) was to have one billion systems running Windows 10 within about three years of the operating system's launch. In July last year, the company acknowledged that it won't hit that target—the original plan called for  50 million or more phone sales a year , which the retreat from the phone market has made impossible. But at the current rate it should still be on track for somewhere in excess of 700 million use...

WZoneLite – A Pretty Cool WooCommerce Amazon Affiliate Plugin .

Everyone wants to make a million dollars by being a blogger. The promise of riches and internet fame is a big draw to doing it for a lot of people, and I’m sorry to say that the reality of being a blogger (even a professional blogger!) is not quite…as financially lucrative as all that. But that’s not to say that it  can’t be –one of the best ways to start your empire is with an Amazon affiliate plugin. For me, the Amazon Associates program has been one of the biggest earners for me over the years. Not only are there CPM ads like Google Adsense (you know, the normal banner ads we all love to hate), but any time someone clicks a link from your site, you get a percentage of  anything  they buy while the token from your site lasts in their browser. If they buy a song, you get a few cents. If they buy a new MacBook Pro and iPhone? You get…a lot more cents. With that in mind, WZoneLite is a  pretty cool WooCommerce Amazon affiliate plugin that syncs everything together s...

Game-changing SEO trends that will dominate 2018.

Changing nature of the rules of the game. As search engines strive to improve the quality of search results, some ranking factors shift shapes, others fall into oblivion, and completely new ones arise out of nowhere. To help you stay ahead of the game in 2018, here’s a list of the most prominent trends that are gaining momentum, with tips on how you can prepare for each. 1. The rise of SERP features Are you assuming a #1 organic ranking is  the  way to get as much traffic as possible? Think again. Increasingly, SERP features (local packs, Knowledge panels, featured snippets and so on) are stealing searchers’ attention and clicks from organic listings. And it’s only fair if you consider the evolution the Google SERP has been through. It has gone all the way from “10 blue links”… … to something that makes you feel like you’re part of a Brazilian carnival. What can you do about it? With the evolution of SERP features, it’s critical that you (a) track your rankings within...