In November 2019, a group of investors from China was holding a symposium on the other side of the ocean. Investors sat around, and in the center of the crowd, a Chinese man in a white Zhongshan suit talked.
When talking about his red notice, the man said with no concern, "Besides the red notice, what red is there, it has been the end!" The words had not yet fallen, and there was an uproar at the scene.
The man, who ignored Chinese law, named Shi Jianxiang, was the culprit in the fast deer fund-raising fraud case. The men and women surrounding Shi Jianxiang were creditors who had crossed the ocean to meet him in the United States. What should have been an incompatible relationship was surprisingly "harmonious" at this time.
Retribution will come sooner or later. At the end of October, the financial giant scam that pits a large number of Chinese investors was arrested by the US police in Las Vegas after lying about the name of the past, and may face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Shi Jianxiang's American dream was suddenly shattered, but the scam he set off in China 5 years ago is still fresh in people's minds.
Shi Jianxiang was born in Chongming County, Shanghai in 1964. After experiencing a poor and long childhood, Shi Jianxiang, who "wants to eat meat every day, you must change yourself", resolutely quit his job in a printing factory in 1995 and went to the sea with 40,000 yuan to do business.
(Shi Jianxiang)
Four years later, Shi Jianxiang took the 100 million yuan earned as an oil agent to acquire four state-owned enterprises, one of which was called Kuailu Cable, which produced the country's first telephone line. After integrating four state-owned enterprises, Shi Jianxiang established two companies, Kuailu Industry and Kuailu Investment, in 2001 and 2003.
With both industry and investment, Shi Jianxiang's wealth has accumulated rapidly. In 2005, Shi Jianxiang's assets increased by more than 40 times compared with the time of its establishment. This year, in the list of China's top ten industrial and commercial talents, Shi Jianxiang ranked first. If Shi Jianxiang is willing to be content with the status quo and becomes an entrepreneur who does business, the earth-shattering financial scam in the future may not happen.
However, in 2009, just as Kuailu was ten years old, Shi Jianxiang stepped into the financial industry, and he established financial companies such as small loans, financing guarantees, and financial holdings under the name of "East Hongqiao".
At this time, it is the golden age of the film and television industry. The total box office of China's films increased from 10.172 billion yuan in 2010 to 44.069 billion yuan in 2015.
The huge profits generated by high-grossing films have made Shi Jianxiang interested in the film and television industry. In 2011, Shi Jianxiang co-produced the film "Eight Stars Annunciation" with Huang Baiming. This movie sold well at the box office, making Shi Jianxiang a big profit. Shi Jianxiang, who tasted the sweetness of film and television, recognized the daughter of Hong Kong actor Zhong Zhentao as his daughter, and in 2012, he held a sensational Disney birthday party on the beach.
At this banquet, Shi Jianxiang's gift to Zhong Zhentao's daughter was said to have a total of one million Hong Kong dollars in cash after gold jewelry such as gold bowls and golden chopsticks. In 2013, Shi Jianxiang, who made a generous move, was listed on the "2012 Hurun Charity List".
A year later, Shi Jianxiang shouted the slogan "Finance is my Chinese dream". This year, he founded more than a dozen finance-related companies and began the road of "high-end" brand packaging. On Shi Jianxiang's Weibo, you can always see his iconic photos: wearing a mid-to-long slim white Zhongshan suit, taking a thumbs up with the star.
In 2015, Shi Jianxiang spent 1 billion yuan to buy the mainland copyright of "Ip Man 3", and a financial scam began.
(Ip Man 3 launch ceremony, Shi Jianxiang and Zhen Zidan)
Shi Jianxiang packaged "Ip Man 3" into a wealth management product film and television treasure, split it into countless asset packages, and sold film rights through dozens of financial platforms, claiming that the annualized rate of return to the market was 10%. In this way, "Ip Man 3" has not yet been released, and the cost has been recovered in advance through the mutual fund platform.
This year, Kuailu Group also invested in 20 enterprises. Among them, two important are listed companies: Ten Party Holdings and Shenkai Shares. For Shi Jianxiang, these two companies are very useful. In February 2016, Shifang Holdings acquired 55% of the box office revenue rights of "Ip Man 3" Chinese mainland for 116 million yuan, and Shenkai shares also subscribed for box office revenue rights for 49 million yuan.
Shi Jianxiang's wishful thinking is: the net box office receipts will be "loaded" into these two listed companies, and the higher the box office, the more it will drive the stock prices of listed companies to rise. Of course, the premise is that the box office of "Ip Man 3" must be a big fire. Then, a magical and absurd scene appeared. On March 6 of the same year, many people found that on the real-time ticketing screens of some urban cinemas, the movie "Ip Man 3" appeared at the ghost box office phenomenon - starting at 0:56, every ten minutes, "Ip Man 3" will have a show, and the ticket price is as high as 203 yuan.
The matter was soon revealed, and "Ip Man 3" and others came to a paper announcement from the National Film Market Special Governance Office: box office fraud was as high as 32 million yuan. The ghost box office incident of "Ip Man 3" not only affected the subsequent box office trend, but also caused the stock price of the listed companies under the Kuailu Group to plummet in an avalanche.
Under the domino effect, the products of the Golden Deer Financial Bank of the Kuailu family have difficulties in payment, and the illegal fund-raising case of the Kuailu Group has surfaced. Everyone found out at this time that the amount of illegal funds raised by Kuailu Group was as high as more than 40 billion yuan, in addition to 28.2 billion yuan being used for various operating expenses in the early stage, the remaining 15.9 billion yuan all went into Shi Jianxiang's personal pocket.
On January 9, 2017, INTERPOL officially issued a Red Notice for Shi Jianxiang to member states. In May, Kuailu Group was filed by the Shanghai police for suspected fundraising fraud. In 2018, the China Judgment Documents Network showed that 4 people in some cases of the Kuailu family had been sentenced for illegally absorbing deposits from the public, with sentences ranging from 1 to 2 years.
Shi Jianxiang, the initiator of this financial scam, fled overseas on the grounds of illness.
Shi Jianxiang has repeatedly stressed to the media that he is a "farmer's son" and that his biggest dream as a child is to "eat braised pork". The label he gave himself was very different from the outside world's evaluation. "Press with pomp and circumstance, smash with cash, love to make fast money, performative personality." Some netizens described Shi Jianxiang in this way.
There are traces of all this. Shi Jianxiang once published a book called "The First Book", which tells about "the life perception and business secrets of the business sea in the past fifty years". But ironically, in a thin book, every page is a celebrity's praise to Shi Jianxiang and a group photo of him giving the star a thumbs up.
After defrauding tens of thousands of Chinese investors, Shi Jianxiang, who fled overseas, repeatedly said on a video that he would not owe investors money, so that everyone had confidence in him. However, tens of thousands of investors did not expect to fulfill Shi Jianxiang's promises, but waited for the news of his marriage in Vancouver.
After traveling to several countries, Shi Jianxiang finally "settled" in the United States. Shi transferred his money to the "tax havens" in the Caribbean where the judiciary was not sound, and through the "bag companies" there, he maintained his life and operations in the United States.
According to reports, Shi Jianxiang's life in the United States is quite luxurious. He lives in a mansion of about 600 square meters outside Los Angeles.
"Shi Jianxiang's mansion, close to Hollywood, was more than $3 million when it was bought, and now it has a market value of more than $6 million." U.S. officials said he had a fixed residence, but I couldn't find a house under Shi Jianxiang's name. He often drives around in a motorhome and has a lot of girlfriends. Gu Yingqiong, a senior real estate agent in the United States, told the market.
For the evaluation of the outside world, Shi Jianxiang is not indifferent. In 2019, Gu Yingqiong published an article about Shi Jianxiang. What he did not expect was that one night in November, Gu Yingqiong received a text message from a strange woman. "She was Shi Jianxiang's wife, and she asked me, 'Do you know Shi Jianxiang?' And invited me to Los Angeles to talk about it. But because of something, I didn't go. Gu Yingqiong told the city boundary.
Shi Jianxiang has returned to his old business in the United States, and finance and entertainment have also become his main position. He used offshore funds deposited in Caribbean jurisdictions to take control of Moregain Pictures Inc., a publicly traded Hollywood production company, and more than 20 other U.S. commercial entities in the United States.
Shi Jianxiang's play in the United States is the same as that in China: spending a lot of money and taking photos with celebrities to develop financial business. In 2017, through his own accounting, Shi Jianxiang donated a political contribution of $50,000. "$50,000 is a big number in the U.S., and the median household income for the average household is only $60,000 a year." Arbor, an independent scholar in the United States, told the city boundary.
Old friend Mike Tyson, the boxing king, has also become another tool person for Shi Jianxiang. He announced that he was going to shoot a "reality show" for Tyson, a show that hypes up a "cryptocurrency" called "Fight to Fame" (Chinese called "World War I Fame" or FF for short.
According to the official website of FF, FF is a business model of "blockchain + movie + movement", as a cryptocurrency, its price rose by 3233% within 7 days, to enter the action reality show. This is surprisingly similar to Shi Jianxiang's "fast deer" scam in China: illegally absorbing public deposits at the expected box office of the film, and then fraudulently using the fictitious film box office.
In order to engage in finance in the United States, in November 2019, Shi Jianxiang also took advantage of the eagerness of some creditors in the Kuailu fraud case to let them travel thousands of miles to the United States to participate in his financial product sales meeting. Shi Jianxiang seems to have an ability to make "some creditors who have been deceived and ruined still believe that their play can continue." A reporter who interviewed creditors once revealed.
Not only that, Shi Jianxiang's "FF cryptocurrency" also hit the "advertisement" back to the domestic online platform, and said that Tyson agreed to participate in the project. However, Tyson did not agree with Shi Jianxiang, but felt that his routine had caused him to be "insulted". Although Shi Jianxiang claims that the total value of the FF cryptocurrency has reached $30 billion, there is no investment record of any company on those mainstream "cryptocurrency" trading platforms.
in Tyson
For the cryptocurrency promoted by Shi Jianxiang, the United States has not yet been characterized, but a Chinese in the United States told the city that everyone thinks Shi Jianxiang is a financial predator, but knows that he is a red notice fugitive. This kind of digital currency investment without the support of actual business will not be easily believed by everyone.
Embarrassingly, in September of this year, the SEC stopped moregain Pictures Inc.'s securities because financial data had not been released.
The shattering of Shi Jianxiang's American Dream also stems from his shattered integrity.
Shi Jianxiang fraudulently obtained two nonimmigrant passports and obtained visas to enter the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, when Shi Jianxiang applied for a visa in 2016, he falsely claimed that he had no other name besides this name. However, the U.S. Department of Justice found that he entered the country under the name "Long Niu" in 2017 and has since lived in California and Nevada under the name "Morgan Shi".
Shi Jianxiang was arrested in Late October in Las Vegas, USA, while he was attending an event promoting "cryptocurrency." He thought his plan to falsify his identity was seamless, but he didn't know that "every visa in the United States will have a retina and fingerprint comparison." Gu Yingqiong told the city boundary.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a Oct. 29 statement that the federal magistrate, believing he had the potential to escape, ordered him to be detained pending trial in Miami. If the Justice Department charges Shi Jianxiang with two counts of fraud and misuse of a U.S. nonimmigrant visa, He faces up to 10 years in federal injunction and a fine of up to $250,000.
However, Huang Lichong, president of Huisheng International Capital, who is familiar with U.S. law, told the city that due to procedural justice (that is, sufficient evidence must be found to prove that the crime was committed), it is more likely that the barristers will pay a high price in the United States (they will try everything to find non-compliance and ultimately invalidate the conviction evidence) and release the parties on bail (see Simpson's wife murder case). But why didn't Shi Jianxiang take this step? "He probably runs out of money, and it's not cheap to ask the barristers to charge, about a few million dollars." Huang Lichong said.
Since his escape in 2016, Shi Jianxiang has been in exile overseas for more than 5 years. The city has learned that Shi Jianxiang, who has the utmost luxury in life, opens companies in the United States mainly rely on offshore funds, rather than the income obtained in the United States, and there is a great tendency to sit on the mountain and eat the sky.
"Shi Jianxiang has been prosecuted in the United States under U.S. law, and when the U.S. criminal justice process is completed, if his status as an illegal immigrant is confirmed, it is possible to repatriate him through judicial assistance between the two countries." Hu Peng, a lawyer at Beijing Yingke (Shanghai) Law Firm, told the city.
In fact, Shi Jianxiang's situation is not an isolated case. Shi Jianxiang's front and back feet were taken away by the US police, and a Chinese woman named Shi Ruixue was arrested by the US police on October 26. She pleaded guilty to committing telecommunications fraud and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Due to the "U.S. investment immigration fraud" case in China, Shi Ruixue also fled to the United States in 2018 on the grounds of "illness". Using an intermediary firm called Wanguo Land, she used a non-existent "Palm Springs Hyde Hotel Development Plan" to declare that "if you buy a $500,000 apartment, you can get a U.S. green card."
Under the platform of Lang Xianping's big V, some people who dreamed of the "American Dream" fell into the trap laid by Shi Ruixue and were defrauded of more than $20 million. On this side, after Shi Jianxiang and Shi Ruixue, who lived a luxurious life in the United States, were arrested, netizens commented one after another: "The American dream is shattered." ”
On the other hand, the victims who were deceived, in China, lived the opposite life of Shi Jianxiang, and when they heard the news that Shi Jianxiang had been arrested, they were on the one hand happy about the arrival of justice, and on the other hand, they were full of confusion about "when they would be able to get back all the compensation".
(Except for the separately marked source, the above picture is from Visual China)
(Author |.) Tao Ting, Editor | Han Zhongqiang)