From the end of 2006 to the beginning of 2007, the appearance and curtain call of Wu Ying, a 26-year-old rich woman from Dongyang, Zhejiang, was so sudden. She shocked people's attention in the media with her wealth of hundreds of millions of yuan, and was suspected of illegally attracting the public. He was detained by the police for the crime of depositing money, which makes people even more confused. She has thus become one of the most famous and controversial figures in the Chinese business community over the years. The collapse of this woman and the true color group that she had deliberately created to sweep Dongyang stirred the nerves of Dongyang, Zhejiang and even the whole country.
On February 26, after the Spring Festival, Dongyang City was still full of strong New Year flavor, and the streets under the bright sun were busy with traffic. On Hanning Road, known as the "Essence Street", the original advertising boards of the Equality Group all over the street have disappeared, and most of the shops have either closed rolling shutters or been blocked with bricks. Only the words "true color" that have not been cleaned are still vaguely visible on the wall.
However, Wu Ying’s case has not been diluted by the strong flavor of the New Year. Wu Ying’s name is still a topic of conversation when people go to work after the Spring Festival.
The young beauty salon owner interprets the myth of wealth
Chen Yidian, publicity officer of the Dongyang Municipal Government Information Office, seems to be quite satisfied with the handling of Wu Ying and Bense Group. He told Democracy and Legal Times ": "So far, from the employees of the Bense Group to the citizens, the mood is stable, and there have been no excessive group incidents."
In addition to Wu Ying, four other people involved in the case who were undercover were also detained. The police have asked the bank to freeze the accounts of the Bense Group and take legal action against the persons and places involved in the case in Dongyang, Yiwu, Zhuji, Jingmen, Hubei and other places.
Wu Ying is from Tangxia Village, Geshan Town, Dongyang City, and does not have a prominent family background. His father was a foreman and his mother was a farmer. My personal experience is not complicated. I studied at Dongyang Technical School for one and a half years and then dropped out to go into business.
In August 2006, Wu Ying seemed to suddenly appear in front of the world and interpret the myth of wealth. Before that, in people's eyes, she was just a small owner of a beauty salon in Dongyang. Overnight, Wu Ying's true color group swept Dongyang. The wealth and energy she possessed astonished the citizens of Dongyang: she acquired more than 20 luxury houses at once; bought Ferrari, BMW, Nissan and other luxury cars; took over more than 100 shops on Hanning Road in Dongyang; within two or three months; Dongyang has opened 12 companies; the annual salary for department managers is as high as 500,000 to 1 million yuan, and each person is equipped with a high-end car; it has donated 6.3 million yuan to charity for three months; it has opened a car wash shop on a trial basis in Dongyang City and laundry etc.
In less than a year, Wu Ying lost 350 million yuan in real money.
In 2006, Wu Ying registered and established Zhejiang True Color Holding Group and served as its chairman. According to the information of Bense Group, the company turned to industrial investment after many years of operation in the capital market. It is a company "led by tourism, commerce, hotel chain and capital investment, integrating building materials, engineering construction, engineering design and decoration, home textiles, e-commerce, advertising media , entertainment service industry as one comprehensive group company."
Two or three months after Wu Ying’s debut, a Hangzhou media reported in three pages that “Dongyang women interpret the myth of sudden wealth.” Subsequently, another Hangzhou media also launched a long report "How Billions of Wealth is Made" in two full pages. Immediately afterwards, a Shanghai media also followed up with three pages. The local media in Dongyang and Jinhua even bombarded the news indiscriminately. The media's endless exaggeration has paved the way for her to interpret the "myth of sudden wealth" on a larger scale in the future.
According to some reports, Wu Ying's wealth has expanded rapidly, and it is said that it is even as high as 3.8 billion yuan. According to this data, she ranked 68th on the 2006 Hurun Rich List and 6th on the list of richest women.
Despite this, some people still question the source of Wu Ying's huge wealth. It’s hard for people to understand: No one would spend their hard-earned money like this!
"The Internet cafes, laundries, hotels, and car washes invested by Wu Ying are all in the service industry. In Dongyang, a small city with a limited population flow, it is unbelievable to invest hundreds of millions in these industries." The feeling of investing is that she just wants to spend her money as soon as possible.
The True Color Group disappeared overnight
Wu Ying seemed to be prepared to face the doubts of public opinion. On January 24, Wu Ying held a small-scale press conference in Hangzhou. She vowed: "All funds are innocent."
However, on the afternoon of February 10, a large number of The police took control of all the stores of the Bense Group in Dongyang in just a few minutes. That night, the Dongyang Municipal Government issued an announcement announcing that Wu Ying had been criminally detained by the local public security agency on suspicion of illegally absorbing public deposits. The Dongyang Municipal Government has instructed relevant departments to form an asset liquidation and asset verification team, and announced that creditors related to Wu Ying and Bense Group will register their claims and debts starting at 2 p.m. on the 11th.
On the same day, four other people involved in Wu Ying's case of illegally absorbing public deposits were detained by Dongyang police.
Starting from the morning of February 11, more than 1,000 employees at the headquarters of Bense Group and various subsidiaries of Bense Group have queued up to receive their wages at their respective workplaces.
On that day, all the densely packed Bense Group billboards on the highway from Yiwu to Dongyang and on the streets of Dongyang were removed, and the word "Bense" on the top of the Bense Company headquarters building was removed. The entrances to the Bense Group headquarters and the Bense Concept Hotel were blocked by bricks and sand.
Wu Ying and her true color group disappeared overnight, just as Wu Ying and her true color group suddenly appeared in Dongyang a few months ago, which caught people off guard.
In fact, after numerous media reports on the source of Wu Ying’s huge wealth, the government and relevant departments have begun investigations, including the anti-money laundering department of the Dongyang Branch of the People’s Bank of China. As early as October last year, the anti-money laundering department conducted a seven-day secret investigation on Wu Ying and found that she was suspected of serious financial crimes and reported the situation to the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department.
The Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department had basically figured out the source of Wu Ying’s funds in November, and filed a case on November 20, known as the “11·20” case.
"Except for a few leaders, no one in Dongyang knew that Wu Ying had been investigated. But next came the two sessions of Zhejiang Province and Dongyang City. On February 10, the day after the two sessions of Dongyang ended, Zhejiang Province The Public Security Department ordered Dongyang police to take action," said an insider from the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department.
The creditor who provided the huge sum of money has never shown up
According to the police investigation, Wu Ying’s money came more from private loans. A popular saying in the Dongyang private lending circle is that in 2005, Wu Ying was already well-known in the Yiwu private lending market. By chance, Wu Ying met a Yiwu boss. The boss not only brought Wu Ying into the loan market, but also provided 5 million yuan as start-up capital. Since then, the high interest rates have made Wu Ying's reputation soar in the loan market. It is widely circulated that the boss who provided Wu Ying with the largest amount of loan funds has lent her more than 600 million yuan.
According to police investigation, Wu Ying repeatedly borrowed money from the public at high interest rates of more than 3 cents per month, and the highest interest rate exceeded 1 cent.
A middle-aged man who invested in real estate in Jinhua lent Wu Ying 18 million yuan in November last year. At that time, Wu Ying paid 8 cents of monthly profit in the name of cooperating on a local real estate project in Jinhua. He borrowed money. After urging many times, Wu Ying returned 5 million yuan, leaving 13 million yuan, which has not been seen yet. According to this man, many bosses in Yiwu took a fancy to Wu Ying's high interest rates, so they borrowed private loans at 5 cents interest and then lent them to Wu Ying.
Just two weeks before Bense Group was seized, a boss in Dongyang had just signed a mortgage contract with Bense, lending 4 million yuan to Wu Ying at high interest rates. It is said that the contract also stated that Benzi used a property worth 7 million yuan as a mortgage. If Benzi failed to repay the loan when it was due, the house would belong to the creditor.
Since the taxation, audit and other four departments jointly registered the claims and debts of Bense Group on the afternoon of February 11, the registered amount is only tens of millions of yuan, but it is mainly in the form of project funds, material funds and car wash cards. . Until February 26, the creditor who provided Wu Ying with a huge loan had not shown up.
Some people in the industry said that Wu Ying did not borrow money directly from ordinary people, but only borrowed money from loan sharks, including professional loan shark brokers. "These people first asked guarantee companies to come forward to obtain low-interest loans from banks, and then loaned the bank's money to Wu Ying at high interest rates through an intermediary."
In fact, in Yiwu and other places , these professional loan sharks often appear as "borrowing intermediaries", first absorbing deposits from customers at an interest rate of about 5 cents, and then lending them out at an interest rate of 8 cents or even higher to earn the interest rate difference.
Relevant experts said that the reason why Wu Ying was able to absorb huge amounts of money in a short period of time was that she used high interest rates as a temptation, and more importantly, she used media hype to increase her visibility and reputation. , most of the people who lent money to Wu Ying lent hundreds of thousands or millions of yuan to Wu Ying because they believed certain media reports.
Local media in Zhejiang revealed that Wu Yinghe’s behind-the-scenes adviser made a proactive choice to reveal his true colors through the media. People who have directly dealt with Wu Ying believe that Wu Ying is the shell representative of the True Colors Dynasty, and there is a real manipulator behind it.
Private lending challenges financial policies
The Wu Ying case exposed the lag and loopholes in financial management in coastal areas such as Zhejiang where private capital is active.
Relevant sources said that during the process of checking the real accounts, it was discovered that Wu Ying had as many as 40 personal accounts. Relevant laws and regulations in our country clearly stipulate that the same person is never allowed to open so many accounts. If supervision is strict, Wu Ying and Bense Group's illegal operations will not go so far in a short period of time.
Just imagine, if Wu Ying hadn't been so public at the beginning, would she have been safe? Have the industrial and commercial and tax authorities been carefully reviewed?
However, to this day, relevant laws and regulations still have a vague definition of private lending activities and illegal absorption of public deposits. According to the relevant regulations of the State Council, "Illegal absorption of public deposits refers to activities that absorb funds from unspecified objects in society without the approval of the People's Bank of China, issue vouchers, and promise to repay principal and interest within a certain period of time." However, how much is to be determined? The amount of borrowing or borrowing by a citizen is within the legal scope, especially under what conditions it violates the Criminal Law. The relevant laws do not provide clear regulations.
Zhejiang has a long-standing tradition of "hiding wealth among the people." The tradition of private financing can be traced back to the 1970s. At that time, many small and medium-sized enterprises mostly financed through the private sector, and very few came from bank loans. This situation It continues to this day.
According to estimates from the Hangzhou Central Branch of the People's Bank of China, the scale of private financing in Zhejiang Province reaches 130 billion to 150 billion yuan. There are currently 30 guarantee companies in Yiwu registered with the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, most of which were established last year and this year and are mainly engaged in short-term lending, guarantee and other services. The emergence of so many guarantee companies in a county-level city in such a short period of time shows the huge amount of idle private capital.
"Going to the bank for a loan requires a mortgage, and the approval time is also very long. By the time you get the loan, the opportunity has been missed." Mr. Chen, a foreign trade businessman in Dongyang, said, "Find a few friends to With a monthly interest of about 2 cents, millions of yuan will arrive in your account within a few days. ”
The popular loan interest in Yiwu and Dongyang areas is 3% of the principal. If you lend 1 million. Yuan, the interest for one year amounts to 360,000 Yuan.
Tong Songqing, a senior lawyer at Zhejiang Wulian Law Firm and a master of finance, analyzed that the legal consequences of Wu Ying’s case may be: first, the crime of illegal fund-raising. Our country's criminal law stipulates that if the purpose of illegal possession is to use fraudulent methods to illegally raise funds, and the amount is relatively large, it constitutes a crime. Secondly, it constitutes the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits. The third is that it does not constitute a crime.
Tong Songqing said that based on the current situation disclosed by the media, he is more inclined to believe that Wu Ying does not commit a crime. Borrowing from private parties at high interest rates is an illegal act that violates financial laws, but to constitute a crime, it depends on whether it violates criminal laws. The interest rate of private loans can be four times higher than the same interest rate of banks. The law does not protect the excess, but this does not mean that high private loans are a crime. To constitute the crime of illegal fund-raising, several conditions must be met: first, for the purpose of illegal possession; second, to obtain funds through fraud. From the current point of view, Wu Ying's use of borrowed money for investment should not be for illegal possession. As for whether it constitutes the crime of illegally collecting deposits from the public, the key depends on whether she has collected deposits from unspecified members of the public. If you only borrow money from specific groups of people or even introduced bosses, it cannot be said to be absorbing deposits from the public.
Because those whose deposits were absorbed are bosses with extra money, and they are all people who hope to make huge profits