According to the Guangdong Provincial High Court,On December 7, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court publicly pronounced the first-instance verdict on the illegal fundraising case of Zhou Shiping, chairman of Hongling Venture Capital E-commerce Co., Ltd. Defendant Zhou Shiping was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal property. The remaining 17 defendants were sentenced to 11 to 2 years and six months in prison and fined.
The court heard and ascertainedFrom 2009 to 2021, Zhou Shiping illegally absorbed about 109 billion yuan in public deposits from more than 480,000 people through the issuance of financing targets on the online platform of Hongling Venture Capital. During this period, Zhou Shiping and others knew that Hongling Venture Capital Company had a huge capital gap, but still issued false loan targets such as "consumer wealth management", "debt replacement" and "red profit treasure" to illegally raise funds, and the funds raised were mainly used to repay the due principal and interest of financing projects and maintain the company's operation and other costs that could not generate profits. Zhou Shiping used his identity as the actual controller of "Investment Treasure" and "Hongling Capital Offline Wealth Management" to wantonly use illegal fund-raising funds to raise funds and defraud more than 20.4 billion yuan.
The court held that Zhou Shiping's criminal acts caused huge property losses and seriously disrupted the financial order. The court made the above judgment in accordance with law on the basis of the facts, nature, circumstances, and degree of harm to society of each defendant's crime.
Some deputies to the National People's Congress, members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, special supervisors, family members of the defendants, and representatives of fundraising participants attended the announcement of the verdict.
It is understood that after Zhou Shiping was brought into the case, the public security organs made every effort to recover the funds, equity, real estate and other assets involved in the case. The assets that have been recovered will be returned to the fundraising participants in accordance with the law after the judgment takes effect, and Zhou Shiping will be ordered to continue to make restitution for the insufficient part.
**: Political affairs