On July 25, 2022, Surachehaphan ▪, assistant director of the National Police Service of Thailand, revealed that Thai police had arrested Zhang Yufa, a Malaysian entrenched in southern Thailand.
Soon, Thailand will revoke his Thai visa and deport him.
Such a short piece of news, for the average person, is far away, trivial, nothing to see.
But it's hard for you to imagine what a huge sensation this news has caused in the circle of Chinese readers in Southeast Asia.
Because this person nicknamed "Papa Zhang" is not an insignificant small role, but a legendary giant fraud involving hundreds of billions of dollars, the ancestor of the Ponzi scheme in Southeast Asia, and the culprit who has ruined countless rich Chinese families overnight.
Zhang Yufa, who is it?
Zhang Yufa - Jianghu people call him "Xiao Zhang", fans call him "Zhang Daddy", the Chinese government calls him "Malaysian MLM person", he himself always boasts that he is "related to the Father of the Nation of Malaysia", and there are also sources that show that he moved to Malaysia with his family after he became an adult.
What is more certain is that he is a 55-year-old Malaysian Chinese with ancestral home in Guangdong.
In 2008, Zhang Yufa founded a coffee chain in Malaysia called "Red Island Cafe".
This café, if only in terms of service quality, can not do others.
However, this café has developed an alternative "shareholder system" method of operation - each "shareholder" contributes 6,000 ringgit (about 10,000 yuan) to share the so-called "shares", not only receives a lot of "coffee coupons" every month, but also receives dividends.
In fact, those "shareholders" who paid the money did not get a penny of shares, Zhang Yufa used the money to open more Hongdao coffee chains, and then used these coffee shops to attract more people to "invest in shares".
As for those chain stores that have been opened in a hurry, it is basically an empty shell, there is no drink to drink, there is no fruit to fruit, most of the categories on the menu are out of stock, and the whole store can place an order for one or two things, which is simply Zhao Pan'er's rebirth.
Clear-eyed people know at a glance that this method is actually a pyramid scheme.
It's just that it's not selling health care cosmetics, but an illusory "chain store shares." The whole "Red Island Coffee" seems to be very popular, blooming everywhere, in fact, the income is all the contribution of "shareholders", the money of one wave of investors, to fool the next wave of investors' money, and there is no real share of the company at all.
A year later, the "Red Island" thunderstorm, Zhang Yufa, his son, and a partner were convicted of fraud by a local court in Malaysia and imprisoned.
By this time, Zhang Yufa had successfully fooled more than 3,000 people, making a profit of more than RM30 million and nearly 50 million yuan.
(In 2009, Zhang Yufa and his son were arrested for the Hongdao case)
However, he did not know what magic he had, and after less than half a year in prison, Zhang Yufa was free again.
After being released from prison, only one year later, he could not wait to re-emerge from the jianghu and set up a company called "Dream Realization Group" with his friend Wang Zihua and began to tinker with the so-called "light assets".
Wang Zihua is a fierce man, calling himself "Dato", through the game (take professional gamblers to take customers to the casino to make money), real estate, stock investment and other ways to accumulate wealth, until after the thunderstorm still lied that he was the "prince" of Perak, Malaysia.
He was eventually arrested not even for fraud, but for being too deep into the drama and being found to have forged his royal identity in a hotel requesting honorific treatment.
(The appearance of "Prince of Malaysia")
"Red Island Culprit" Zhang Yufa and "Artificial Dato" Wang Zihua merged "Dream Group" with a technology company and renamed it "MBI".
The nightmare of the subsequent sensation in China and Southeast Asia, which left countless victims ruined, began.
First, there is the packaging.
Spend a lot of money to buy off the outgoing Head of State of Malaysia, the Chief of Police and other important personnel, as a company consultant.
Advertising all over the world, so that the streets and alleys of Malaysia appear zhang Yufa's face;
Engage in charity all over the world and create the image of a serious businessman.
Opening high-end consumption venues, buying airlines, and creating a closed loop of one-stop reception of foreign investors are convinced.
Then, there are the concepts.
Under the blessing of layers of packaging, the actual business of the company is packaged in the concept of "digital game financial management", the more investment, the higher the level, the more downlines found, the greater the reward.
What internet, big data, "technology wealth management", Mface, smoothing financial management, fan loyalty consumption feedback ecology, crowd information flow...
Zhang Yufa created countless concepts and turned a scam into a feast.
By 2015, MBI had snowballed to 10 billion and had truly become Malaysia's premier mega-enterprise.
At this point, it was already difficult for any foreigner to tell whether the MBI was a true bodhisattva or if it came.
In 2015, the wave of virtual currency came, and Zhang Yufa began to issue virtual financial products such as "Barter Point" and "Walker Gold".
What is a "barter point"? What is "Walkerkin"?
You can understand that it is a kind of "coin" issued by Zhang Yufa, a virtual carrier of pyramid schemes.
You buy these coins, you can "sit and wait for the appreciation", only rise and not fall, the more you buy, the more you earn - if you want to withdraw cash, you can, it will be slower, buy ten million only a second, withdraw ten thousand a day.
Are you slow? It doesn't matter, you can take your "coins", "points", "gold" to the MBI platform to sell, sell to other "M fans", this is fast, isn't it?
And these coins can be consumed in MBI's hotels and shopping malls, as if they are not so illusory.
Then buy it? Buy it! Earn it? Earn it!
So I bought it again, bought it like crazy, and called on the whole family to grab the "point" and pan for "gold" all night, afraid that they would not be able to catch up.
Some people feel that they will not be fooled.
But when they saw the "return" of real money, they still believed.
Those who are worth millions, tens of millions, billions of BOSSes, owners, high-IQ people, those who should be much smarter than us moonlight people—
In this way, he rushed into Zhang Yufa's trap one after another.
In fact, no matter how beautifully packaged and how mysterious the concept, Zhang Yufa's empire is still a typical "Ponzi scheme".
Use the investment of new leeks to become the income of old leeks, attracting a steady stream of leeks to continue to enter... Until it can't move, another round is started, so that the leeks who have no return will once again hold the illusion of "this time I am at the top of the pyramid" to start a new round of games.
Every Ponzi scheme cannot expand endlessly, and there will always be a day of thunderstorms.
The day has finally come.
In 2017, China and Malaysia began jointly cleaning up the MBI Group. Malaysia blacklisted it with high financial risks, while China directly classified it as a pyramid scheme, and the head of the Chinese region, He Zhenqiu, was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Even at this point, the "M fans" still do not believe in reality, continue to encourage people around them to invest, and support Zhang Yufa for more than two years.
In 2019, I finally couldn't go on.
Chinese investors who find themselves with nothing to lose, their wives and children are scattered, their families are ruined, and they have embarked on a desperate road.
The number of defrauded people is as many as tens of thousands, with a total amount of more than 500 billion yuan.
As an overseas enterprise, MBI is beyond the reach of the Chinese side and it is difficult to recover losses.
As a result, the victims decided to go to Malaysia through their own strength to "collect debts".
In October 2020, hundreds of Chinese victims staged a massive demonstration on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the malaysian capital.
They held up banners and tearfully shouted slogans such as "Give me back my hard-earned money."
Walk through the official residences, walk through the embassies, and walk through the streets of Kuala Lumpur in the pouring rain.
Finally, in front of the headquarters of MBI, the Chinese debt collection army knelt down, crying everywhere, and the sadness shook the sky.
Where the citizens of Kuala Lumpur have seen such scenes, they have stopped to watch, and the whole city has become a sensation.
This "Chinese-style debt collection" made its way to the front page of Malaysia's news and quickly spread throughout Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Chinese mainland and the entire Chinese-speaking world.
The Malaysian government, under heavy pressure, began to speed up the thorough investigation of Zhang Yufa, seizing all of his more than 90 bank accounts and issuing a wanted list of him.
Some Chinese victims also entered Malaysia to "collect debts by force" and went to Zhang Yufa with knives and guns and explosives.
Zhang Yufa then fled and fled to Thailand.
He was also ordained in Thailand.
Of course, monasticism and everything is fake, and Zhang Yufa is not Buddhist at all.
He actually came back to life.
Even if the pyramid scheme empire collapsed and fled to Thailand, Zhang Yufa has not stopped, and is still trying to "make a comeback" - and it is really up.
During the "absconding to Thailand", he lived a good life, still a boss, bought an entire street in Songkhla province on the southern border of Thailand, and opened hotels, entertainment venues, amusement parks, and shopping malls there. The total area is equivalent to more than 200 football fields (100 rais) and is worth tens of billions of baht.
After making money, Zhang Yufa went to honor Thai politicians and bribed a "deputy leader of a political party in Thailand" and some local government officials.
Don't say absconding, in two years, people will simply be "reborn" and buy half of Songkhla.
Zhang Yufa was full of evil, but the aspect of "endless life" really had to be obeyed.
On July 22, Zhang Yufa was finally arrested in Thailand.
With the cooperation of China, Malaysia and Thailand, the assistant director of the Thai Police Department, Surachey, ordered the net to be closed, but the police raid still missed the wind before the raid, and Zhang Yufa actually boarded an unregistered fishing boat in advance and planned to flee Thailand.
The Malaysian Coast Guard intercepted the fishing boat at sea and forced it back to the coast of Thailand, which finally caught Zhang Yufa.
After his arrest, the Thai side detained Zhang Yufa in the local immigration detention center and then escorted him to Bangkok.
Surachey said that the Chinese side is actively coordinating with the Thai side to send the Wang Badou, who has defrauded Hundreds of Billions of Chinese citizens, to China for trial.
The Malaysian police, two days after Zhang Yufa's arrest, also suddenly applied to the Thai side to extradite Zhang Yufa back to Malaysia for investigation.
At present, it is still unknown what the future holds for Zhang Yufa. The only certainty is that Thailand will deport him and will not leave him in Thai territory for trial.
On July 27, Lao Han visited Surache as a member of the "Thai-Chinese New Media Association".
While waiting for Lao Su, a table of people talked about Zhang Yufa's arrest a few days ago, and discussed that when they met, they should ask a few questions about this matter.
As he was speaking, a big guy in the visiting group (or a local "overseas Chinese leader" in Thailand) patted his thigh and said that he was also a victim of MIB.
Everyone was very surprised that such a table of people actually saw such a living case, which was not too coincidental.
This overseas Chinese leader did not shy away from it, and told us about it, so that we personally understood the horror of Zhang Yufa and the horror of MIB.
During his visit to Surache, the overseas Chinese leader praised the Thai police for arresting Zhang Yifa.
Surache reminded the overseas Chinese friend to hurry to China to report to the police. In the coming day, Zhang Yufa's home was copied, and he could pay compensation to the victim to some extent.
Moreover, in Thailand alone, there are many industries that have been raided by Zhang Yufa!
Those cheated compatriots, are they stupid?
No, they are shrewd businessmen, wealthy elites, business CEOs who can invest millions.
Tens of thousands of victims have been defrauded of 500 billion yuan, which shows how strong the average financial resources of the MBI victim group are.
But it was these wealthy and shrewd Chinese who still couldn't escape the net of scammers, getting deeper and deeper into a Ponzi scheme that we seemed very typical of in hindsight.
Don't always feel that you are always smarter than others.
Scammers are hateful, but the greed of luck in people's hearts, the desire for windfalls from heaven, and the desire to "find another way" in the era of economic depression make liars always have the opportunity to take advantage of them.
The deceived person can be someone else, and it may not be yourself.
The only thing that can save us from being deceived is not wisdom, not poverty (Zhang Yufa himself can't cheat me of a few dollars of "financial immunity")
Rather, "there is no free lunch in the world" and "the money I earn steadily earns will make me sober" in the world.
Finally, I sincerely hope that the Thai side can send Zhang's family to China, so that we, the country that is most deeply "cared for" by Zhang Yufa, can repay his love well.
Malaysia, considering the precedent of issuing tigers to Zhang Yu during the "Red Island Coffee" period, it is inevitable that people are a little worried.
Leave this matter to China.
This miraculous Zhang Yufa is really too hateful and too terrible, and presumably only under the physical care of China can he break his hope of "rebirth from the fire" again. (Editor: Yue Han)