In the text of his wife Wang Tao, Zhang Wei is portrayed as a successful entrepreneur who started from scratch, loves his family and dedicates himself to public welfare. However, in reality, Zhang Wei is the leader of a criminal syndicate that uses business to raise criminal syndicates and operates triad-related crimes.
| Author: Ershui
| Editor: Ah Ye
| Editor: Laurenger
The mafia-related case that shocked A shares was finally judged!
On the evening of May 31, Hesheng New Materials issued a notice saying that Zhang Wei, the actual controller of the company, had been sentenced by the Intermediate People's Court of Shenzhen Municipality, Guangdong Province: Zhang Wei was convicted of organizing and leading a mafia-type organization, illegally absorbing public deposits, forced trading, intentional injury, illegal detention, fraud, extortion, gathering crowds to fight, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, accommodating others to take drugs, bribery, and several crimes, and decided to carry out life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal property, and a fine of 12.17 million yuan.
Screenshot of the announcement
It is rare for the actual controller of a listed company to be accused of involvement in the black market, and the Zhang Wei case is a typical case.
Before the incident, Zhang Wei participated in the holding of hundreds of enterprises, creating a 10 billion "Zhongkechuang" empire. As a typical figure of entrepreneurship in the south, he has won the title of "Shenzhen Business Figure" and has also been elected as a deputy to the Fifth and Sixth People's Congresses of Shenzhen.
However, Zhang Wei, a financial tycoon in the business world, has another face behind his back.
For more than a decade, the mafia-related organizations headed by him have illegally seized huge amounts of wealth by "raising blacks with businessmen" and "protecting businessmen with blacks," and a large number of borrowers have suffered greatly from them. It was found that Zhang Wei had also paid a bribe of tens of millions of yuan to Li Huanan, former deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal CPC Committee and former secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, so that he could serve as a "protective umbrella" for himself for a long time.
Find the secretary of the municipal party committee as a "protective umbrella"
In Zhang Wei's business life, Li Huanan is a character clue that cannot be avoided.
Li Huanan, 62, has long held important positions in Shenzhen's legal system. In May 2015, he began to serve as deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee, secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, and in July of the following year, he also served as the secretary of the Party Working Committee of Guangming New District.
On September 22, 2020, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission made a detailed disclosure of Li Huanan's case of acting as a "protective umbrella" for Zhang Wei's mafia-related organization.
In October 2009, Zhang Wei was introduced to Li Huanan, who was then the deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Shenzhen Municipal People's Congress. The following year, Li Huanan took advantage of his position to help Zhang Wei become a deputy to the Fifth People's Congress of Shenzhen Municipality. Zhang Wei, who got the sweetness, will send cash and shopping cards to Li Huanan every Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and other festivals, worth a total of 620,000 yuan.
In 2016, Zhang Wei opened a P2P online lending platform. In November of the same year, the "88 Fortune Network" under Zhang Wei Company attracted the attention and investigation of the police for suspected illegal absorption of public deposits. At this time, Zhang Wei found Li Huanan again, hoping that he could help himself.
According to Caijing magazine, under the intervention of Li Huanan, the personnel who went to the "88 Fortune Network" to investigate were quickly evacuated, and no one was arrested or deducted. Soon after, the Shenzhen police decided not to file the case.
On October 9, 2018, the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection released the news: Li Huanan is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law and is currently under disciplinary review and supervision investigation. Sixteen days later, Zhang Wei was taken away by the Discipline Inspection Commission and liuzhi by the Supervision Commission the next day.
Li Huanan
After review, Zhang Wei's case quickly rose to the level of law. On January 23, 2019, Zhang Wei was criminally detained by the police for his involvement in organized crime, and was sent from the Huizhou work site of the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection to Shenzhen for criminal investigation by the police in accordance with the law.
After multi-party investigation, it was found that the mafia-related organizations headed by Zhang Wei used financial platforms to induce victims to borrow or raise funds, obtained the real estate of debtors or guarantors by forcing debtors to default, false lawsuits, and other means, and used soft and hard violence to illegally seize huge wealth. However, Li Huanan, knowing that Zhang Wei had a background involved in organized crime, still took advantage of his position to seek benefits for him in matters such as enterprise operation, project construction, case litigation, and job adjustment.
On July 31, 2020, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court publicly pronounced a verdict in the bribery case of Li Huanan, former deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and former secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, in which Li Huanan sought benefits for others in matters such as business operation, project construction, case litigation, and job adjustment, and accepted property totaling more than 26 million yuan and more than 10 million Hong Kong dollars, and sentenced Li Huanan to 15 years' imprisonment and a fine of 3 million yuan for accepting bribes; all illegal gains were recovered.
It is worth noting that the judgment records that Li Huanan helped Zhang Wei to be elected as a deputy to the Fifth People's Congress of Shenzhen Municipality and that the case of illegally absorbing deposits from the public was not filed.
Spend $500 million on a private jet
After Zhang Wei's arrest, his wife, Wang Tao, published several articles online.
In Wang Tao's text, Zhang Wei is portrayed as a successful entrepreneur who started from scratch, loves his family and dedicates himself to public welfare. However, in reality, Zhang Wei is the leader of a criminal syndicate that uses business to raise criminal syndicates and operates triad-related crimes.
In the early years, Zhang Wei served as a soldier in the northeast for several years. In his spare time, he likes to read, often reading books and periodicals in finance and economics, so he came up with the idea of doing business. After retiring from the army, 26-year-old Zhang Wei went south to Shenzhen with 2,000 yuan to work as a security guard in an office building and do decoration projects.
As for what Zhang Wei relied on to make his home, there are many opinions. Wang Tao wrote that Zhang Wei worked as a liquor agent and used the money he earned to buy houses and office buildings. Due to the rapid appreciation of real estate, Zhang Wei looked at the opportunity to sell and made more than 10 million yuan.
In November 2004, taking advantage of the opportunity of the state to liberalize small and medium-sized enterprises to establish credit guarantee companies, Zhang Wei established "Zhongkechuang Financial Holding Group Co., Ltd.", whose main business is the guarantee industry, which is also the starting point of a series of wealth management companies. In a publicity report, Zhongkechuang claimed to be one of the first private enterprises to enter the financial industry, and was recognized as a credit enhancement institution by the Qianhai Equity Exchange Center shortly after its establishment.
In 2008, the asset management industry began to explode, and Zhongkechuang began to transform, operate wealth management business, and launch a new business model - "Tenpay" to lay out the field of financial innovation.
In 2011, Shenzhen's high-net-worth families began to increase, and Zhongkechuang continued to expand its wealth management business, hoping to build a Chinese wealth club and introduce the concept of family wealth management to open up the capital channels for high-net-worth personnel.
In 2013, P2P mushroomed, and Zhongkechuang also entered Internet finance at this time, and launched the online lending platform "88 Fortune Network", focusing on the P2B model, that is, "personal lending, corporate borrowing", and also signed a star to endorse it.
Zhang Wei's every straight line in the outlet finally ushered in a highlight moment for himself and Zhongkechuang. According to media reports, in 2010, Zhang Wei had a net asset of more than 3 billion yuan; in 2014, he told the media that the assets under management of Zhongkechuang Matrix Company had exceeded 13 billion yuan, the turnover of "88 Fortune Network" was nearly 2 billion yuan, and the number of website members reached 150,000.
2015 is the most brilliant period of the Zhongkechuang Department, Zhang Wei introduced the company in a promotional material, "After ten years of industry experience, at present, Zhongkechuang has six major sections of Internet finance, Internet real estate, wealth management, mergers and acquisitions and investment, wealth art museum, and fortune club, with a cumulative asset management scale of 31.2 billion yuan, and has provided services for more than 76 Hong Kong stock and A-share listed companies so far." ”
The company's performance is in the ascendant, and Zhang Wei's shot has also become generous. He once bought a private jet for $500 million in the company's name and said the move was motivated by the development of the company's business. Partners of the firm can use the aircraft for 30-50 hours per year free of charge.
Still in 2015, Zhongkechuang gradually entered the listed company Zhongke New Material (formerly "Hesheng New Material") through various methods such as agreement transfer, secondary market transactions and participation in fixed increase. The original company has been engaged in the research and development, production and sales of appearance composite materials for home appliances. The entry of Zhongkechuang made the stock price soar for a time, and the market value increased to tens of billions, which was a big bull stock at that time.
However, in the following time, the performance of Zhongke New Material continued to decline, and it lost money for two consecutive years. On April 29, 2019, Zhongke New Material was warned by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange of delisting risks and changed its name to *ST Zhongke (Note: *ST - the company's operation has been losing money for three consecutive years, delisting warning); later changed to ST Zhongkechuang on July 8, 2020 (Note: ST - the company's operation has lost money for two consecutive years, special treatment); on December 1, 2020, it was renamed ST Hesheng.
Two faces of philanthropists
Zhang Wei, who failed to play with the capital market, has his own "means of accumulating wealth" behind his back.
In the process of wealth accumulation, he gradually formed a mafia-type organization with Han Zuoji and Wang Dong as active participants, plus many subordinates participating, by attracting neighbors, recruiting younger brothers, and hiring employees.
According to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone News, Liang Mourong, a businessman who runs four chains of fast food restaurants, borrowed a total of 41.35 million yuan from Zhang Wei four times in five months because he was in urgent need of large funds to expand his business. After Liang Mourong's capital turnover could not be opened, exceeding the term of bad debts, the stores he operated were often "patronized" by dozens of men dressed in black. And these people are the "horse boys" hired by Zhang Wei's subordinates Han Zuoji and Wang Dong.
Dressed in black, exposing tattoos, and occupying tables, many customers left before they entered the door. The "horse boys" also often drive away customers who are eating, and even rob cash from the cash register, which seriously affects the business of fast food restaurants.
Liang Mourong, who was forced to be helpless, was anxious to resume business, so he had to transfer 90% of the equity of an investment holding company and about 40% of the remaining equity of a state company to Zhang Wei at a price of 100 yuan and 200 yuan respectively. After assessment, the market value of 90% of the equity of the investment holding company was about 138 million yuan at that time, and the value of the shareholders' equity of about 40% of the equity of a state company at that time was 29.13 million yuan. In the process of Zhang Wei's lending to Liang Mourong, there were also illegal acts such as signing false loan contracts and fictitious flow of funds.
In another borrowing incident, the victim, Sun Mouqin, borrowed 18.524 million yuan from Zhang Wei. When borrowing for the first time, Zhang Wei asked Sun Mouqin to entrust the notarization of 11 properties under his name to the person designated by Zhang Wei as debt guarantee, and also asked Sun Mouqin to pay an additional "handling fee" of 1.67 million yuan. During the loan period, Zhang Wei added a number of unnecessary expenses, so that Sun Mouqin's debts accumulated higher and higher. When Sun Mouqin was unable to repay, Zhang Wei instructed others to use the notarized power of attorney to sell 11 properties, totaling more than 58.09 million yuan, which was finally appropriated by Zhang Wei.
The court found that Zhang Wei illegally absorbed 14.9 billion yuan of public deposits in the name of a company or individual through the "88 Fortune Network", private equity funds, and borrowing from the public between 2011 and 2017.
Zhang Wei used part of the illegal income for investment and earned guarantee fees; the other part was then lent to others, charged high "beheading interest", and grabbed huge profits in the form of "routine loans", resulting in many borrowers being unable to repay. In the debt collection process, Zhang Wei and his subordinates have carried out a series of illegal and criminal activities such as forced transactions, intentional injury, illegal detention, extortion, crowd fighting, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, false lawsuits, and illegal intrusion into residences.
Zhang Wei, who was cruel to the victims, played the philanthropist card in front of the public and often brushed his face in major financial forums.
On December 29, 2015, at the 10th Anniversary Conference of Shenzhen Business, Zhang Wei announced that he would donate 1 billion yuan in his personal name to build China's Science and Technology Innovation Foundation, and said: "What is the purpose of being a business? What do people live for? I think if a person only knows how to make money and has no social responsibility, this person will not be able to do much in the end, because we have an old saying in China, small wealth depends on ambition, and great wealth depends on morality. ”
On February 1, 2021, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court held a trial of the mafia-related cases of 19 defendants including Zhang Wei and 4 defendants including Zhongkechuang prosecuted by the Shenzhen Municipal People's Procuratorate, and the first defendant, Zhang Wei, was accused of organizing and leading a mafia-type organization, illegally absorbing deposits, forcing transactions, picking quarrels and provoking troubles, false lawsuits, extortion, and gathering crowds to fight, with more than 550 files.
During the trial, Zhang Wei and others also vainly tried to exonerate themselves by "developing Internet finance." However, the legal net has been restored without leakage, and Zhang Wei has relied on illegal means to cause countless victims to ruin their homes, and the wealth accumulated through exploitation of society will inevitably be severely punished by state laws for his crimes.
References: Website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and State Supervision Commission, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone News, China Fund News, Surging News, etc.