1. The godfather of online lending was finally sentenced to life: 480,000 people were harmed, and more than 100 billion yuan was illegally raised, can the money be recovered?
Zhou Shiping, the chairman of Hongling Ventures, is known as the "godfather of online lending", and he illegally absorbed more than 109 billion yuan of public deposits from 2009 to 2021 through Hongling Ventures' platform, and these funds came from more than 480,000 people. It is worth mentioning that Zhou Shiping not only harmed the rich, but also countless families and individuals who fell into the cycle of online loans. Finally, on December 7, a Shenzhen court sentenced Zhou Shiping to life imprisonment for fund-raising fraud and illegally absorbing public deposits, and the other 17 main offenders were also sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two to 11 years. However, an important concern for the victims is whether the defrauded funds can be recovered
Hongling Ventures' illegal fundraising behavior is shocking, with the help of so-called "consumer wealth management", "debt replacement" and "red yingbao" and other false targets to carry out illegal fundraising, and the funds raised are mainly used to repay the principal and interest of financing projects, maintain the company's operation and the luxurious life of senior executives. Zhou Shiping attracted investors with a high interest rate of more than 15%, but when Hongling Venture Capital faced an unsustainable predicament, they used "Ponzi **" to fill the previous funding gap with the funds of latecomers, which eventually led to a huge loss of wealth for the people. Zhou Shiping's claim to invest in Hongling's target is "risk-free investment and financial management", because he proposed the principal and interest advance model, that is, investors transfer the risk to the platform, rather than taking their own risk. However, this model actually breaks the essence of P2P lending, that is, the person-to-person loan model, and Hongling Venture Capital does not take risks, but makes up for losses by splitting the east and making up for the west. Hongling Venture Capital even dared to promise to advance principal and interest even in the face of a serious funding gap, which is also one of the means for them to continue to defraud more investment.
The amount of money involved in Hongling Venture Capital is staggering, and the total amount of illegal fundraising they have raised exceeds 109 billion yuan. At the same time, they were also suspected of defrauding 20.4 billion yuan, and the amount involved was as high as 130 billion yuan. For investors, the most important concern is whether the funds they have invested can be recovered. At present, due to Zhou Shiping's first-instance verdict, the official will recover the investor's funds in accordance with the procedures in accordance with the law, but there are still deficiencies that need to continue to hold Zhou Shiping accountable.
The case of Hongling Venture Capital has once again drawn attention to the P2P industry. In fact, the P2P industry has played a certain role in China's economic development, but due to poor regulation, it has caused a series of problems. Our lack of supervision of shadow banking has led to cases like Hongling Venture Capital, Zhongzhi, and Evergrande. These problems not only hurt investors, but more importantly, they hurt people's confidence in investment and consumption. Today, China is facing an economic downturn and a lack of consumer confidence, not overnight, but as a result of the accumulation of such cases. It is not easy to restore confidence, so in the follow-up process of dealing with Hongling Ventures, it needs to be cautious and continue to hold accountable.