Chinese police are detaining dozens of small investors who have been scamended from money by state-related investment groups and reportedly accusing them of acting on behalf of “anti-Chinese forces overseas” by airing their complaints in public.
At the heart of the controversy is Shandong Jianghaihui Financial Group, a government-backed investment company headquartered in Shandong Province. The company is suddenly I stopped operation In March, its founder fled to the United States with his wife.
Approximately 100,000 small investors were angry to discover that $2.744 billion in investments had risen in smoke when the financial group dissolved. When the Chinese government seemed unclear to do something about it, the scammers investors began talking to reporters – and the government did something very quickly they.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) It has been reported On Wednesday, depositors of dozens of victims, most of them women, were detained by police after attempting to avoid a communist regime embargo on news coverage of Shandong Jianghaihui's story by speaking to foreign journalists, including the RFA itself.
“All people who contacted you from here have been detained,” a Shandong source told the RFA. “They said we are being used by international anti-Chinese military forces and we are all committed crimes.”
According to RFA sources, Chinese police began rounding up news reports on Shandong financial collapse on foreign websites, getting the source's name for their stories and rounding them up. Some of the unfortunate depositors were released within a few days, while others are in custody to this day.
There are several reasons why the Chinese Communist Party views this story as very troublesome. That's the government Deeply worried As US tariffs bite China's export economy, this is a very bad time for dozens of middle-class women to talk about how uncruel financial companies stole life savings.
Worse, the distressed depositor says the government blames Chandon's scandal, as the company's oversight is so loose, to say the least. The victim says he invested in the company because he believed the activity was part of the Chinese government's efforts to stimulate private companies.
The RFA noted that a group of fraudulent investors wrote the Communist Party of China's Disciplinary Committee and the Ministry of Public Security to help them recover their money. Their letter asked why the government described Chandon Ziangaii's activities as “illegal fundraising” as if it were some kind of private charity, rather than a “contract fraud.”
The reason for this elusive rhetoric is that the financial company has retained a government-issued business license and has most likely passed government audits over the years. Like many other financial companies over the past few years, owners packed cash into their pockets and fled abroad just before their investment plans fell apart.
Another example was a company called Zhongrong International Trust. I'm bankrupt In 2024, Chinese officials began the process of liquidating the assets of the trust on April 15, urging massive protests by empty-handed investors who were enthusiastically ignored by Chinese state media, but not by the well-known “Li is not your teacher” opposition.
Li said more than 100 demonstrators, including “elderly, women and cancer patients,” were “hardly dragged” from the scene of police's Zhongrong Trust protests.
