Breaking news: 21 arrested in China in largest ever Ponzi scheme

Today it has been reported within Chinese media that £5.3 billion has been stolen from approximately 900,000 investors by managers at peer-to-peer lending platform Euzbao.

Whilst it is very difficult to gauge both the truth and the exact extent of this alleged ponzi scheme due to restrictions on internet access and media reporting in Euzbao’s home country of China, if this is correct, then it would set a new milestone as China’s largest ever case of investor fraud, both in value and by number of victims.

Chinese government-owned news agency Xinhua has reported that two suspects have already confessed to operating the scheme whilst they were being held in police detention centers.

Zhang Min, the previous president of Yucheng Group which is the parent company of Euzbao has, according to the report, described the business as a “complete Ponzi Scheme.”

Investigations have been in progress by police since December last year, at which time the assets of the company were frozen by Chinese authorities.

The scheme has been orchestrated by 21 suspects, including the high flying Ding Ning, who masterminded it and is a high-flying and wealthy executive.

All of the suspects are collectively accused of luring investors with false offers of very high annual returns running into double digits, ranging between 9 and 14.6%.

Photography in Shanghai, China. Copyright Andrew Saks-McLeod