Hello everyone, I take the time out of my busy schedule today to bring you the following article, welcome to taste it together!
The golden jade garment is the highest specification of the burial dress of the Han Dynasty.
When the emperors of the Han Dynasty were buried, they needed to wear a jade box connected with gold wire like armor, which was called "pearl jade box" in history, which was actually what people often called the golden jade coat, which could protect the dragon's body from decay for thousands of years.
In addition to the golden jade robes, there are also silver jade robes and copper jade robes, which are used for royal and noble funeral ceremonies according to the nobles.
After entering the 21st century, the rapid development of China's economy has been accompanied by the rapid decline of the antique industry, and a fraud drama jointly opened by businessmen and antique appraisers has been staged in the antique industry.
A businessman actually used jade pieces found from nowhere to forge golden jade clothes, and relevant experts identified jade clothes worth 2.4 billion yuan.
The businessman used this appraisal certificate to defraud more than 700 million bank loans and squandered them.
This incident caused an uproar that year, which not only seriously hit the enthusiasm of antique lovers for collecting, but also posed a higher challenge to the relevant financial bank staff.
But forging a rare treasure is not a simple matter, what kind of method did this businessman use to deceive the eyes of countless people and successfully defraud the loan?
By defrauding loans, he climbed the list of China's richest people
On June 13, 1960, Xie Genrong was born in an ordinary family in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and his academic performance was not good since he was a child, and his family did not discipline him too much.
Therefore, after graduating from junior high school, Xie Genrong did not continue his studies, but entered the society and began to explore his own life path.
Unexpectedly, he happened to ride the tide of the times, and in his twenties, the clothing trade on the border between China and Russia developed rapidly.
Many people without business acumen made a lot of money in the clothing trade on the Sino-Russian border as long as they were willing to do it, and Xie Genrong seized this opportunity and earned the first pot of gold.
After the age of 30, Xie Genrong began to think that doing clothing trade business was just a temporary solution, and that to really make a lot of money, he still wanted to do a real estate business.
So Xie Genrong established the Beijing Yanshan Watson Group, first established a brewery and beer city, and then entered the real estate industry in a big way.
With an annual rent of more than 5 million yuan, a small building on the bustling streets of Beijing was transformed into the Walson Hotel, and the follow-up construction and hospitality costs totaled more than 60 million yuan.
In the list of China's richest people at that time, Xie Genrong ranked 163rd, with assets of more than 600 million.
But few people know that Xie Genrong's fortune, except for the first pot of gold earned by his own luck, most of the others are based on bank loans to maintain the illusion of prosperity.
Almost all of his assets are bank loans, and the way to repay the loans is to borrow more loans.
Once the capital chain is broken, not only will it cause huge losses to the bank, but Xie Genrong himself will have nothing.
This illusion of prosperity originated in the late 1999 East China Gold Project.
At that time, the Beijing Xuanwu District Real Estate Operation and Development Company lost a lot of cash flow due to the renovation of dangerous houses, and the operating pressure was very large, so it had to publicly transfer the Donghua Jinzuo project under the circumstances of last resort.
Xie Genrong took over the Donghua Jinzuo project, but his Walson Group did not actually have enough cash to support the completion of the project.
In order to successfully raise funds, Xie Genrong held a meeting with the senior management of the group, saying that he did not have the start-up capital on hand, and if he wanted to complete the project to let the enterprise grow, he needed to use a special method to raise funds.
This so-called special method is "fake mortgages".
Xie Genrong asked all the senior executives of the company to go home to find their relatives and friends and apply for fake personal housing mortgage loans, so as to defraud funds from the bank for the development of the enterprise.
At that time, many senior members of the group raised objections, but in the end, Xie Genrong collected more than 500 fake mortgage contracts, totaling more than 600 million loans from banks.
According to the relevant staff's later recollection, in fact, the more than 600 million loans, verbally said to be invested in the construction of the company's projects, helped the company to become bigger and stronger, in fact, it was still for Xie Genrong's personal squandering.
From the moment he cheated the bank loan, Xie Genrong did not think about developing the enterprise, he just wanted to live a dashing life.
The 2.4 billion-dollar golden jade coat helped him deceive the bank president
Outrageously, such a large-scale fake mortgage loan has even been approved by bank staff.
At that time, Xie Genrong was helped to handle these loans by Yan Linzhuang, president of a branch of China Construction Bank.
It was not until the end of 2002 that Yan Linzhuang and Vice President Zhao Feng found in an audit that Xie Genrong and Walson Group seemed to be suspected of fraudulent loans.
At this time, more than 600 million yuan of loans have been issued for more than a year, and once Xie Genrong cannot repay them, Yan Linzhuang, as the president of the branch, will be severely punished.
To this end, Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng came to Xie Genrong's company to negotiate with him.
Unexpectedly, Xie Genrong did not panic when he saw the two presidents of the bank.
He was not busy setting aside his responsibilities, but took a sharp turn and shifted the focus of negotiations from whether to cheat on loans to whether he had the ability to repay.
Xie Genrong showed Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng a series of corporate financial statements.
The report shows that the Walson Group has been in good business in recent years, the prospects are very good, as long as it continues to operate, it is not difficult to repay bank loans.
Afterwards, Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng learned that this financial statement was forged by Xie Genrong.
However, at that time, a financial statement still could not dispel Yan Linzhuang's worries, and Xie Genrong's killer skills were his two jade coats.
Xie Genrong took Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng to his "Genrong Exhibition Hall", which contained two large glass cabinets with two pieces of armor-like clothing.
Xie Genrong pointed to one of them and said to Yan Linzhuang:
"This is the golden jade coat, there are only two pieces in the world, all of them are here, and I have asked experts to identify it, the market valuation is 2.4 billion, such a valuable thing is put here, I have not sold, but used as a collection, do you have a few hundred million I can not afford it?" It's just that the group's recent capital turnover difficulties, we continue to cooperate, those hundreds of millions of loans I can definitely repay, really not, don't you still have these two jade coats? ”
At first, Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng did not believe Xie Genrong's statement.
But then, Xie Genrong pulled out an appraisal certificate, which surprised the two people.
The appraisal certificate clearly states that the golden jade coat is indeed worth 2.4 billion yuan, and it has the signatures of five top antique appraisal experts in China.
The names of these five people have even been heard by Yan Linzhuang, an outsider.
In the end, Yan Linzhuang not only did not pursue Xie Genrong's responsibility for fraudulent loans, but even continued to provide Xie Genrong with more than 400 million loans, hoping that as Xie Genrong said, after the company's working capital is sufficient, these loans can be repaid.
As a result, this arrears are more than six years.
In March 2008, when the National Audit Office conducted an audit of China Construction Bank, it found a large number of problematic loans.
All the problems pointed to Xie Genrong's Walson Group, and the approval of these loans was the branch president Yan Linzhuang, and in this way, the loan fraud case was revealed to the world.
When he was arrested by the police, Xie Genrong still had more than 500 million unpaid.
This case was originally an ordinary fraud case, but because the amount of money involved was very large, and it was related to the antique industry, it attracted media attention.
After the media report, the antique industry practitioners were very surprised.
Because antiques such as golden jade clothes are not just antique collections, but national treasures, why would Xie Genrong have them? And have two pieces? How did the $2.4 billion valuation come about?
Shunto touched the melon, the police continued to investigate, the media also continued to visit, and the final result surprised everyone - the golden jade clothes were fake, but the signatures of the five top Chinese antique appraisal experts were real!
It was Xie Genrong who paid them money and asked them to issue an appraisal certificate, and then used this appraisal certificate as a base card to defraud the bank loan through the golden jade cloth.
In 2005, Xie Genrong's personal assets amounted to as many as 700 million, and none of the 700 million belonged to him, all of which were borrowed from the bank through golden jade clothes.
What's going on?
Five authoritative appraisers, even joined hands with businessmen to defraud loans?
Around 2000, Xie Genrong met a man named Niu Fuzhong.
He is the director of the appraisal committee of the Beijing Zhongboya Cultural Relics Appraisal Center, and a special appraisal expert of the TV station's "Tianxia Collection" column.
In the antique identification industry, Niu Fuzhong's fame is not great.
However, in the eyes of ordinary people, he is already an expert with enough qualifications to identify antiques.
Xie Genrong had just borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from banks with more than 500 fake mortgages.
But he knew that once this kind of fake loan operation was exposed, he would have no way back.
In order to find a way back, he took a fancy to Niu Fuzhong's resume.
On this day, Xie Genrong found Niu Fuzhong with a small pile of jade pieces, hoping that Niu Fuzhong would help him make these jade pieces into golden jade clothes and silver jade clothes.
Niu Fuzhong is also an insider, he carefully looked at the jade pieces brought by Xie Genrong, and saw that some of them were indeed ancient jade, but some jade pieces were just ordinary modern processed products.
Xie Genrong said that these jade pieces were all collected from somewhere in his hometown in Zhejiang, and he spent a lot of money, believing that they were part of the golden jade clothes, and wanted Niu Fuzhong to help him make the golden jade clothes.
Niu Fuzhong saw at a glance that these jade pieces did not come from the golden jade clothes, but Xie Genrong reached some kind of deal with him, and Niu Fuzhong finally helped Xie Genrong make two jade clothes.
After this, Xie Genrong also asked Niu Fuzhong to exert his influence in the industry and find some authoritative appraisal experts to identify the jade clothes.
In this way, an appraisal team composed of Wang Wenxiang, Yang Boda, Yang Fuxu, Li Jinsong, and Shi Shuqing came to Xie Genrong's exhibition hall and identified the jade clothes.
Xie Genrong did not expect that this team lineup would be unexpectedly so luxurious, which made him ecstatic.
The final appraisal result was that the jade coat was worth 2.4 billion yuan, and the five experts signed the appraisal report.
According to Niu Fuzhong, before leaving, Xie Genrong gave Wang Wenxiang hundreds of thousands of yuan, and asked Wang Wenxiang to share a point with four other experts as a fare for several experts to run a special trip.
With this appraisal report, Xie Genrong not only dispelled Yan Linzhuang's concerns about himself, but also used the money the company borrowed from the bank to "buy" his two jade coats.
In this way, Xie Genrong has a value of 700 million yuan out of thin air, and the jade clothes have become the "assets" bought by the company.
In this way, this is a purely large fraud by the combination of cultural relics identification experts and businessmen to defraud banks of loans.
Therefore, when the process of the event was exposed by the media, the entire antique collection identification community ushered in a huge shock.
Many experts and scholars in the industry who are reluctant to do fake appraisals, but are helpless against such fake appraisals, finally have a voice channel, including the famous antique collector Ma Weidu.
According to these scholars, this joint counterfeiting in the industry has become an industry.
Merchants will take fake artifacts to find famous appraisers to apply for appraisals, and the appraisers will ask for 1% to 5% of the appraisal fee.
If the merchant agrees, the appraiser will give a price of real cultural relics that is several times higher than that of fake cultural relics, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, and issue a corresponding appraisal certificate.
After the merchant takes the appraisal certificate and sells the fake cultural relics, and after making a profit of tens of millions, he gives 1% to 5% of it to the appraiser as a reward.
After the industry was exposed, many collectors and ordinary people criticized these appraisers.
In particular, the five senior appraisers who valued jade clothes at 2.4 billion yuan were fiercely criticized.
However, in their eyes, they are actually victims.
They know nothing about Xie Genrong's fraudulent loan behavior, and the hundreds of thousands of car and horse fees cannot be talked about, and the development of things to this point can only be said to be the result of various coincidences superimposed.
In fact, these five appraisers were indeed quite senior and capable masters in the industry, and one of them was the top seat in the Chinese antique industry at that time.
Many people also wonder, with their ability and status, there is no need to make a profit through such a fraudulent way, so what is the identification of jade clothes?
The relevant media found and interviewed four of the five experts, and from their mouths, we were able to look at the whole case of fraud and loan fraud from another perspective, and understand why they said that they were innocent.
Experts have spoken out one after another: we are also victims
The first person to be found by the media was Wang Wenxiang.
He is the director of the World Committee for the Appraisal and Evaluation of Cultural Relics and Works of Art, the vice chairman of the World Collectors Association and the president of the China General Association, and has served as the secretary general of the Chinese Collectors Association, which is indeed authoritative enough.
Facing the media camera, Wang Wenxiang admitted that he had long known that the two golden jade clothes and silver jade clothes were strung together with scattered jade pieces.
However, in the face of "knowing that it is strung together, why should it be evaluated and identified as cultural relics?" When this question was asked, Wang Wenxiang also had his own set of statements.
He said that he thought that the jade pieces themselves were scattered, and if they were left alone, it would be easy to discard one or two pieces, or even scatter them all in all directions.
Since these jade pieces have been collected in the market, stringing them together with gold thread can also be regarded as a little contribution to the country's collection industry, which is a good thing.
But why is it obvious that it is not a golden jade coat, but it has to be valued at 2.4 billion?
Wang Wenxiang did not answer the question.
He said that at that time, everyone looked at it hastily, and without professional appraisal and evaluation, the price of 2.4 billion yuan was made by the famous old gentleman Shi Shuqing who was present.
Since Mr. Shi Lao had already given this price, he did not make a sound, and finally everyone signed the appraisal certificate together.
As for what Niu Fuzhong said, he saw that Xie Genrong gave Wang Wenxiang hundreds of thousands of yuan to let him go back to share, and Wang Wenxiang sternly said that this matter was purely rumor-mongering, and Xie Genrong only gave each person more than 10,000 yuan in carriage and horse fares.
Subsequently, the media successively found Yang Boda, former vice president of the Palace Museum, Li Jinsong, former secretary general of the China Gem and Jade Association, and Yang Fuxu, director of the Gem Identification Center of Peking University, who were also three other experts who participated in the appraisal at the scene in addition to Wang Wenxiang.
From their mouths, we can roughly restore what the situation was at that time.
Yang Boda said that when it came to the scene of identification, Xie Genrong did not open the glass cabinet.
Everyone just walked around outside the glass cabinet, looked at it casually, didn't look carefully, and signed the appraisal.
Because the appraisal book was given by Mr. Shi Shuqing, he had no possibility of refutation, he just regarded this appraisal as an activity, and several old friends came to the scene to meet and see the golden jade clothes.
Then everyone went out to have a meal together, and went back to their respective homes, not as a particularly serious appraisal.
Yang Fuxu, director of the Gem Identification Center at Peking University, claims that if jade is to be identified, it will take dozens of steps, not only to measure by machine, but also to touch with your hands.
But at that time, there were no such conditions at the scene, Yang Fuxu wanted to reach out and touch it, but Xie Genrong did not open the glass cabinet, and could only observe with the naked eye.
In this case, Yang Fuxu believes that whoever is most authoritative on the scene must listen to whom.
Mr. Shi Shuqing set the tone of "treasure is true" at the scene, and also set a valuation of 2.4 billion, of course, he could not violate it.
Compared with Yang Fuxu and Yang Boda, Li Jinsong's emotions were more excited, and he cried sadly after hearing that Xie Genrong had defrauded the bank loan with that appraisal report.
At that time, Li Jinsong also signed the appraisal with everyone according to Shi Shuqing's appraisal, and Li Jinsong also carefully told Xie Genrong that this thing must not be sold.
Xie Genrong also assured Li Jinsong that he invited everyone to come over, just to identify his own family property, these jade clothes are his treasures, absolutely impossible to sell.
Listening to Xie Genrong's words, Li Jinsong put down a big stone in his heart, since the jade clothes were not sold on the market, the valuation did not matter.
Because in those days, this kind of thing did happen often:
The big boss with money collects a few antiques, and will ask the famous heritage identification experts to identify them, they are not ready to sell these antiques, just want to know that these antiques are really valuable.
Under this premise, the appraisal experts will also give a slightly higher price accordingly to enhance the friendship between the two sides.
Who knows this time, Xie Genrong is pregnant with a ghost fetus and deceives five experts to make a super high valuation of 2.4 billion.
From the words of these four experts, we can know that they did not go to Xie Genrong's exhibition hall at that time to make a particularly cautious appraisal.
I didn't even look closely at the material and composition of the golden jade robe, but just circled around the glass cabinet from a distance, and made a reckless value judgment.
Moreover, although the words spoken by the four experts are different, one sentence is almost exactly the same: Mr. Shi Shuqing made the most authoritative judgment, and we dare not violate it.
How authoritative is this old Mr. Shi Shuqing?
Originally, Mr. Shi Shuqing had served as a researcher at the Chinese History Museum, was the vice chairman of the State Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee, and was also the president of the China Collectors Association, not only had supreme authority in the Field of Chinese Cultural Relics, but also had great fame in the world.
However, in 2008, when the East Window incident occurred, Mr. Shi Shuqing had been dead for more than a year due to heart failure, and we have no way of knowing how he made a valuation of 2.4 billion yuan that year.
However, some of the deeds of Mr. Shi Shuqing before his death seem to explain something.
It is said that after Mr. Shi Shuqing got older, his temper became more and more like a child, and he must be right when he identified something.
Once walking on the street, the old man Shi Shuqing saw a bronze sword on the stall, he thought it was "Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword", and happily bought it home to prepare for the museum.
After the museum's appraisal, it was politely rejected, and the family with relevant knowledge also thought that the sword was just an ordinary forgery.
However, the old man Shi Shuqing still stubbornly believed that no one else knew the goods.
After the East Window incident, the reputation of the four living appraisal experts was greatly damaged, and for a time no one in the antique industry was interested.
Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng, who approved loans to Xie Genrong in violation of regulations, were also investigated by relevant departments after the incident.
In the end, Yan Linzhuang and Zhao Feng were sentenced to 20 and 19 years in prison respectively for committing illegal lending and issuing financial bills in violation of regulations, and three other bank staff members involved in different degrees were also sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment and suspended sentences.
Xie Genrong was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court in the first instance for loan fraud.
To this day, the impact of this event on the antique collection community still exists, and many auction staff claim that when an antique is brought, if it is not accompanied by an appraisal certificate, it may be true, and if it is accompanied by an appraisal certificate signed by an authoritative expert, most of it is fake.
Such an industry status quo can be said to be very ironic.
However, with the more stringent national regulations and the more perfect management of related industries, I believe that in the near future, there will be fewer and fewer scammers in the antique industry, and appraisal experts can really play a role in appraisal.