Ding Yifeng in the center of the storm: is still selling digital options, some internal employees admit that "the hole is too big", and the regulatory authorities have repeatedly issued risk warnings
Ding Yifeng Investment Seminar on the 7th Floor, Block A, No. 1 Mangrove Bay, requires registration at the door to enter
In the drumming and flower passing, most of the people involved think that they will not be the last one.
Recently, a "Significant Positive Notice for All Investors" (hereinafter referred to as the "Positive Notice") issued by Ding Yifeng International Asset Management Group has been circulating on the Internet, saying that Ding Yifeng International Asset Management Group intends to issue "digital options" and set a closed period for investors to prohibit withdrawal. Previously, Ding Yifeng had the problem of unpaid dividends and unpaid contracts when the contract expired.
On January 17, after the stock price fell 30% the day before, Ding Yifeng Holdings (00612. HK) quickly issued a clarification announcement, saying that the favorable notice was not issued by the company, and the suspicious business behavior had nothing to do with the company. Sure enough, after the clarification announcement was issued, Ding Yifeng Holdings' share price closed up 14.44% on the same day.
However, when the reporter of "China Times" visited the office of Ding Yifeng, he saw that there were waves of investors who were overdue to inquire, and the difficulty of payment has become a reality. In the interview, the reporter learned that the investment amount of Ding Yifeng investors ranged from hundreds of thousands of yuan to hundreds of millions of yuan, and even many people borrowed money from banks to invest through business loans and mortgaged real estate, but most of the investors still behaved relatively peacefully.
The rumored Ma Xiaoqiu, who was arrested for smuggling out of the country and was released on bail pending trial, and Sui Guangyi, who negotiated and cooperated with a Middle East consortium to seek funds, frequently appeared in the mouths of the staff. There are also rumors that Sui Guangyi tried to leave the country, but was blocked, and one investor told this reporter that the last time she saw Sui Guangyi was in June last year.
Staff insist that "good notice works"
"Chairman Sui", "Great Teacher", "Master", ...... Sui Guangyi, who is rumored to have no house, no car, no deposit to rent under his name, and eats peanuts, rice and shredded potatoes every day, is the soul of Ding Yifeng.
According to Sui Guangyi's resume disclosed on the official website of Ding Yifeng Holdings, this person "integrates business, politics, and Chinese studies research experience and background". After studying and practicing traditional oriental culture for 20 years, Sui Guangyi went south to Shenzhen in 2011 to found Ding Yifeng Group Co., Ltd. and became the chairman of the board of directors, with his partner Ma Xiaoqiu as president. Since then, enterprises associated with "Ding Yifeng" have been established one after another. From 2015 to 2020, Sui Guangyi served as a non-executive director and chairman of the board of directors of China Investment Fund Corporation (China Ding Yifeng), a Hong Kong-listed company. In 2020, he served as the chairman of the board of directors of Hong Kong Ding Yifeng International Holdings Group Limited.
The official website of Ding Yifeng Holdings has disclosed that the listed companies controlled and participated in by the group include Huayin International Holdings (00989. HK), Venture Group Holdings (02221. HK) and other listed companies on the main board of Hong Kong, as well as Chinese mainland listed companies such as ST Tianma (002122). Ding Yifeng Group takes Sui Guangyi's original "Oriental Classical Philosophy Value Investment Theory System" as the core technology to provide investors with financial services. The company's industrial layout mainly includes Changbai Mountain's cultural tourism industry, health care industry and innovative magnetic energy industry.
According to the recent favorable notice on the Internet, Ding Yifeng International Asset Management Group officially applied for listing on the international digital asset exchange, and issued equivalent "digital options" on the international digital asset exchange for global trading according to the asset valuation.
In order to achieve a smooth listing on the international digital asset exchange, the notice puts forward three requirements for investors: first, all investors will not be able to withdraw from January 10, 2024 to September 10, 2024, closed for eight months, the number of shares cannot be changed, and those who are unwilling to list will be withdrawn when the closure period expires, and second, all dividends will be 0.5% from February 1, 2024 Third, for all listed investors, all listed investors will sign a guaranteed asset management contract, and those who have completed 10 years will have a guaranteed asset appreciation of 20 times.
On the morning of January 17, Ding Yifeng Holdings issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange saying that the notice of major benefits for all investors issued by "Ding Yifeng International Asset Management Group" was not issued by the company. To the best of the Company's knowledge, knowledge and belief, the issuer of the so-called favorable notice is not a subsidiary or affiliate of the Company.
In response to the media's alleged suspicious business practices, Ding Yifeng Holdings tried its best to distance itself from the company, its subsidiaries or affiliates, and was not aware of any reason for the decline in the stock price.
Regarding the clarification announcement of the Hong Kong-listed company, many business managers and salesmen within Ding Yifeng did not comment, but insisted that the "good notice" commitment was valid. Only one staff member told the China Times that the clarification announcement was only to stabilize the stock price, and the "positive notice" was internal. On the day of the clarification announcement, Ding Yifeng Holdings closed up 14.44%.
It is worth mentioning that on the evening of January 19, Tianyancha could not find any contact information about Ding Yifeng Holdings. In addition, on January 16, Fuhui International (01034. HK), Hengfu Holdings (00643.HK) HK), Wanma Holdings (06928. HK) and other three listed companies issued announcements to remove Ma Xiaoqiu as chairman of the board of directors, and Fuhui International also removed him as a non-executive director. The reasons for the dismissal all pointed to his absence from all board meetings, his management style and philosophy being different from that of other directors, etc.
Liu Xinyi, a non-executive director ousted by Wanma Holdings on the same day, is Ma Xiaoqiu's daughter and a traffic Internet celebrity with 8 million followers on Douyin. A number of investors recounted that Liu Xinyi was able to become an Internet celebrity, and he used money to "smash" many online events.
The investor was skeptical, and the salesman admitted that there was no money
On January 18th and 19th, the reporter of "China Times" visited the 53rd and 56th floors of Block A of Kingkey Binhe Times Square, the 6th and 7th floors of Block A of Mangrove Bay One and the 51st floor of China Energy Storage Building.
In the past two days, a number of salesmen and business managers met by the reporter still tried to send a signal to investors, telling them that the outside world thinks that Ding Yifeng's negative is because of insufficient "cognition", and the company is now in the throes of transformation. After the reporter finished meeting with a business manager as a prospective investor, he called several times and invited the reporter to go for tea and lectures.
Kingkey Plaza is the office location with the largest number of investors in recent times. The reporter saw a banner with white characters on a blue background hung by the Shatou Sub-district Office and the Shatou Police Station on the side of the road, and the banner read: "Cherish the blood and sweat of your life and stay away from illegal fundraising." In the hall, there are posters about the risk warnings of Ding Yifeng's "original equity" and "options". But everyone seems to be in a hurry, and few people stop.
Although there are many investors who come to visit, there are only three or three office staff in the office, and many desks have been emptied, and there are few traces of personnel working.
Kingkey Riverside Times Square, Block A, Ding Yifeng's office is deserted
During the visit, the reporter learned that Ding Yifeng had begun to default on dividends as early as June 2023, and basically everyone could not get dividends by August. Due to the discontinuation of dividends and the non-payment of expired contracts, many investors have doubts about the commitments in this "good notice" and want to withdraw early.
In this regard, Tu Hua (pseudonym), a female salesman who claims to be the third department and has been working in the company for eight or nine years, said frankly to several investors in the tea room: "It's not that you don't give it, if you have money, you will definitely give it." "To put it bluntly, the company is now so big that we can only go to the [Middle East] side to raise funds for the global market and close the debt, but now it is in operation, and it will take time and process." ”
She said that the company is now in the reform period, the launch of digital options will be listed abroad in March, Sui Guangyi is pulling investment from the Middle East consortium, will set up two companies in Dubai, one of which is called "Dingdao Global".
In order to appease the investors on the spot, Tu Hua also specially revealed that at five o'clock in the evening of the 17th, the company's internal executives would mention that Ma Xiaoqiu, who was arrested for smuggling money and released on bail pending trial, also came back with 400 million yuan, "It will definitely not be refunded, but it will receive a little (dividends) before the year." ”
Regarding the upcoming digital options, Tu Hua said that the company is now slowly conducting training, and they are also new to digital options and do not understand this concept.
In this regard, Qi Yanbing, a lawyer at Guangdong Jintang Law Firm, emphasized in an interview with a reporter from the China Times that Ding Yifeng's staff encouraged investors to sign a new contract for "digital options", which could not make its suspected financial illegal acts obtain any form of legitimacy and legitimacy Cover up the inherent investment risks and the suspicion of a financial crisis that has occurred.
"The act of signing a new contract is itself a manifestation of its unilateral modification of the main investment terms, and if the investor does not commit to it and sign it, it should not have legal effect on the investor. However, once the investor signs, unless the contract is invalid in accordance with the law or revoked due to fraud, the investor will enter the capital bureau rebuilt by Ding Yifeng, and the investment risk it faces will be magnified many times compared with the past. He said.
Investors mortgage real estate and cars for investment
During the interview, the reporter learned that many investors bet their entire net worth on Ding Yifeng. Tu Hua said bluntly in the process of reassuring investors: "Everyone knows that for so many years, everyone has been attached to the company for dividends and has loaned out all the old houses. ”
Investor Huang Yun is one of them. After repeated introductions by friends, Huang Yun, who entered the game in 2022, invested more than 1 million yuan. It is understood that Huang Yun's friend invested more than 4 million yuan. When asked about his mentality with his friends, Huang Yun said one word: "afraid".
Huang Yun told reporters that due to the shortage of living expenses, Huang Yun first invested 500,000 yuan and about 3% of the monthly dividend product to test the water under the introduction of a friend. Under the persuasion of a salesman friend, Huang Yun finally chose to mortgage the property to the bank.
The salesman once encouraged Huang Yun to lend out all the three or four million yuan that could be mortgaged for the house, but after calming down, Huang Yun chose to mortgage half of it and invested in Ding Yifeng again in one fell swoop.
"The salesman will teach us, saying that they have familiar people, for example, pushing a friend to come over, helping to spend 2,000 yuan to set up a company, make a commercial loan, make a fake invoice, and finally transfer two hands and then return to the investor's account, they all do it all with one hand. Huang Yun said that with the help of the salesman, it is a "one-stop" service, the operation process is not troublesome, and the handling fee is cheap.
"If the loan is not repaid, the house will be collected by the bank. Huang Yun reluctantly said that she had visited her almost every day for the past week, but the manager in charge of her business had not yet appeared.
Wu Xiao (pseudonym) shared with reporters that his friend spent 600,000 yuan to buy a Porsche Paramela and realized more than 1 million yuan through three pledges. When the reporter asked how this was done, Wu Xiao said, "People have a way to teach you how to get a loan."
Wu Xiao is also an investor in Ding Yifeng, and her partner invested hundreds of thousands of yuan under the introduction of acquaintances. Wu Xiao told this reporter that they couldn't resist the insistence of the other half, and at the beginning they invested tens of thousands of yuan with the mentality of "having fun". It wasn't until the recent news report about Ding Yifeng that he knew that Ding Yifeng "had an accident", and he also knew that his partner had invested twice in succession without telling him.
After many door-to-door communications, Ding Yifeng only gave a solution of "discounting and reselling", and it was impossible to recover the principal. In the end, Wu Xiao, who didn't trust Ding Yifeng, chose to resell his contract in two folds and get rid of it as soon as possible.
The "Lao Ding" family with an investment of hundreds of millions of yuan: they can still get dividends
"There's really no way, it's irritating. "When it comes to Ding Yifeng, Yixuan is not angry. Regardless of his persuasion and opposition, his family and friends invested more than 100 million yuan in Ding Yifeng, and pledged and borrowed tens of millions of yuan. Among them, a relative alone invested tens of millions of yuan, and some family members sold four properties worth a total of 30 million yuan.
Yixuan said that the salesman above often instilled similar "brainwashing" words to his family. Recently, as soon as he talked to his family about Ding Yifeng, they would say: "Even if Chairman Sui is arrested, he will go to prevent disasters for us people, and we must be very moved by his great love, and we can't take advantage of the fire to ask for money at this time, and we must support our 'Lao Ding'." "Our master told us that difficulties are only temporary, and we believe that it will be better, and people can't always think about the master's good when they eat meat, and don't carry it for the master when they are in trouble. In order to obtain "energy" and "good fortune", many of Yixuan's family members have replaced their mobile phone screensavers with Sui Guangyi and Ma Xiaoqiu many years ago.
After a long-term understanding of Ding Yifeng, Yixuan believes that what can now be determined is: first, Ding Yifeng does not hold a financial license in Shenzhen and does not have the qualifications to engage in financial business; second, the contract is fake; third, the official seal is fake; fourth, Ding Yifeng adopts the "take-it-or-leave-it" doctrine for several shell companies, and when it is beneficial to it, it is advertised that it is a listed company of Ding Yifeng; and when it is not profitable, it is "anti-water" and claims that it has nothing to do with the listed company. In addition, not only in the Pearl River Delta, Ding Yifeng's business has actually expanded to Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai.
According to the contract information provided to reporters by an investor, the official seal stamped is "Ding Yifeng International Holdings Co., Ltd.", which is also suspected to be non-existent, and is neither the "unwarranted" Ding Yifeng International Asset Management Group in the favorable notice, nor China Ding Yifeng Holdings Co., Ltd., a Hong Kong-listed company.
In addition, Ding Yifeng's products are diverse, ranging from as short as half a year to as long as 20 years. Taking 100,000 yuan as an example, Yixuan introduced to reporters the way Ding Yifeng does business. "In order to attract investors to enter the game, the salesman will find out the assets of the intended investor, and when encountering a solid family, the salesman will even advance money for the investor first, so that he can experience dividends to gain trust; for investors who are not strong enough financial resources, the salesman will use their initial insecurity to guide them to the luxuriously decorated office to visit, participate in meetings, 'brainwashing', after half a year of frequent exchanges, after expiration, 100,000 yuan plus 3,000 yuan per month of dividends, 118,000 yuan to investors. ”
Yixuan told reporters that the investors who introduced them into the game are their classmates, friends, and relatives, and after getting the dividends, they will blow another round of wind to investors to induce them to continue to invest, "They will say, 'Invest three points are the lowest yield products, you see I invested in 3 + 7, three times in three years.'" Yixuan said, "At this time, you are hot-headed, and you will definitely invest more than 100,000, but 500,000, 1 million, and 2 million." In the process, the salesman will also examine the investor's network to determine whether he can develop into a "downline" salesman. Those who become salesmen have a share to take, and the maximum can be 25 points.
According to a salesman's work plan mastered by the reporter, the salesman will "plan to have a performance of 3 million in 2024, and strive to send 3 to 4 friends to the company every week to learn and understand the great cause".
Unlike the vast majority of investors, Yixuan's family can still get monthly dividends. "Watch people put down their dishes. Yixuan believes that the reason why the dividends have not been broken is that the salesman thinks that their family still has money to "take".
OCBC Bank China cracks down on counterfeiting twice
At nine o'clock in the morning of January 19, a small-scale morning meeting in Taiyuan of the Energy Storage Building was held as usual. The "China Times" reporter saw in the well-decorated conference room that only about half of the people were seated. The host of the scene claimed that this was because a large number of colleagues and "family members" went to the opening ceremony of the Qingyuan Zen Yi Workshop, and it was usually full of seats.
Shenzhen Taiyuan's Zen Yi workshop
The process of the morning meeting of the day is like this, first led by the host, bowing to Lao Tzu three times, reading the "Tao Te Ching", and then reciting the "Song of Righteousness" three times, followed by the sharing of views.
"No matter how the ups and downs outside, at this time, we must believe in the company and follow the company. A person who was invited by the host to share on stage said, "Chairman Sui is such a big leader, and he can do such a big family business in a short period of time." Everyone has difficult times, but the 'patriarch' did not evade responsibility, but dealt with problems and did not run away. ”
At the end of the speech, the speaker asked the audience if they had the confidence to "work together to overcome difficulties", and the audience burst into applause driven by several people.
Subsequently, a female vice president who claimed to have more than 300 customers now came to the stage to respond to questions from the outside world, and she behaved calmly, "We are about to move towards the process of globalization and internationalization, and we want to publicize it, but I didn't expect so many people to attack our 'Lao Ding', and the 'advertising fee' is not needed." ”
What is quite dramatic is that the morning meeting, which originally lasted for the whole morning, lasted only one hour, but it was stopped because the police comrades in Nanshan came to carry out the anti-fraud propaganda work of "putting an end to illegal fund-raising", and the "family members" scattered and hid in one office after another, while the two responsible persons of the company were not in the office that day.
The reporter noticed that there are many statues of the God of Wealth, Maitreya, Bodhisattva, and Guan Gong in each office of Ding Yifeng, and someone burns a stick of incense from time to time. An internal manager of the Taiyuan Group said that Ding Yifeng has hundreds of large office locations of nearly 3,000 square meters like Taiyuan in Shenzhen, which are exquisitely decorated.
As for why investment transfers and dividends are transferred to private accounts instead of being traded through corporate accounts, the manager said that Ding Yifeng is a private equity fund, but it is different from the minimum investment amount stipulated by the state. "(Sui) Chairman is engaged in innovative finance, people's finance, 10,000 yuan, 20,000 yuan can also follow up, if it meets the state (regulations) can not be done. ”
Tu Hua, the business manager, also admitted to investors that the company's current financing is not allowed by the government, and the "transformation" is to cooperate with national policies. "If the transformation is successful, everyone is happy. "Otherwise, this endless financing will explode sooner or later." ”
Qi Yanbing bluntly said in an interview with the "China Times" reporter that Ding Yifeng's channels for absorbing and using investment are more personal accounts of the company's stakeholders or stakeholders, which are already illegal fund operations, in addition to the suspicion of tax evasion, more to evade the possible investigation of the regulatory and judicial departments, as well as the legal prosecution that Ding Yifeng may bear as a result. This method undoubtedly greatly increases the investment risk of investors and increases the difficulty of tracing and recovering funds. If it is found that illegal fundraising or fundraising fraud is established, such tactics will be one of the important circumstances of the heavier sentence.
In the mouth of the above-mentioned management person, Sui Guangyi, who "disappeared" last month, went to Beijing several times, and while showing the short video message released by the "Dingdao Global International Group" video account, he said that Sui Guangyi had served as the vice president of OCBC Bank of Asia and the president of the international investment banking department, which solved the problem that Ding Yifeng could not obtain a traditional financial license in China.
However, the reporter noted that on December 22, 2023 and January 18 this year, OCBC Bank China twice "refuted rumors" through its official account, saying that the news that "Sui Moumou served as the vice president of OCBC Bank of Asia and concurrently served as the president of the international investment banking department" was not officially released by OCBC Bank, and the individuals and institutions mentioned in the news were not related to the bank in any way.
The regulatory authorities have repeatedly issued "risk warnings"
Although the Shenzhen Municipal Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau has twice issued a "risk warning" and the difficulty of cashing in has become a fact, some investors still insist on "not calling the police", believing that it is because investors who defend their rights make the company more reluctant to pay money; some people sang and harmonized with the business manager on the spot, declaring that they hope that others will "help each other in the same boat" and "overcome difficulties together" with the company, and "believe that Chairman Sui can solve the problem".
The above-mentioned internal management person told reporters that Ding Yifeng has 500,000 investors, giving the highest rate of return in the world, with an average annualized rate of more than 60%, and some customers have invested hundreds of millions of yuan alone, and a single investment has reached 80 million yuan.
Recently, the reporter of "China Times" repeatedly called the three departments of the Shenzhen Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau to try to verify, but the two phones continued to be busy. The Shatou Police Station responded to investors that the incident has not yet been filed, but it is under full investigation. According to a source close to the public security system, the Ding Yifeng incident can basically be characterized as illegal fundraising.
At present, in the "Investor Information Registration" section of the Shenzhen Economic Investigation Official Account, "Shenzhen Ding Yifeng Fund Investment Management Co., Ltd." has been added to the platform name selection list.
Qi Yanbing pointed out to this reporter: "Ding Yifeng's investment chain and methods are complex, and the fields and regions involved are relatively wide, the number of investors involved and the total amount of funds are very large, and there may be a large number of overseas operations. It is precisely because of the above reasons that there are many objective obstacles or dilemmas in the administrative investigation of the regulatory authorities, especially the majority of investors still have illusions about Ding Yifeng, and in terms of cooperation with the administrative investigation, both enthusiasm and participation are obviously insufficient. ”
Regarding Ding Yifeng's statement that he will switch to digital options in the future, Qi Yanbing said in an interview with a reporter from the China Times that Ding Yifeng induced investors to change the "track" in the name of transforming digital option investment and the words of ultra-high rate of return, most likely just to cover up its widespread problem of capital chain rupture and redemption crisis.
He said that on the one hand, digital options are an emerging type of options, and they are still in the conceptual stage in China. Digital options investment has a great speculative nature, and if you fail to bet on it, the direct result will be a 100% loss of the entire investment amount. Ding Yifeng deliberately concealed the speculative nature of high returns and high odds in the promotion of digital option investment, and promoted it as an investment type with fixed excess returns, and used it as a tactic to lure the original investors to transform, which has already been suspected of fraud.
On the other hand, the rupture of Ding Yifeng's capital chain is related to its long-term financial speculation as the main direction of profit, because of the lack of industrial entity investment, supported by the operating returns of the real economy, no matter how "immortal" the method is, it cannot resist the systematic shrinkage of the financial market, especially in the field of derivative financial investment, and the latter is currently an unavoidable status quo in the financial circles at home and abroad. In particular, its source of funds is mainly the investment funds of domestic investors, and it lacks the support of a long-term, stable, open and transparent investment mechanism and investment direction.
Qi Yanbing believes that if there is no other better investment and profit plan released, the possibility of the incident taking a turn for the better will be very small, and he suggests that new and old investors must be vigilant at this time and not be easily induced by their words.
"Ding Yifeng's capital operation mode has been investigated and warned by the regulatory authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China many times, which fully shows that its illegality has met and triggered the conditions for administrative supervision. Qi Yanbing told reporters that from the current disclosure of the method of absorbing investment funds, combined with the administrative warning of the regulatory department, the illegality of Ding Yifeng without the administrative permission of the regulatory department, the openness of publicity in the form of promotion meetings, mobile phone information, etc., and the inducement of promising to repay principal and interest or give returns. The sociality of the unspecified majority of the society to absorb investment, the four attributes of illegal fundraising are likely to be already present, the possibility of suspected illegal fundraising is very large, and because the amount is particularly huge and suspected of a crime, once it is found that fraudulent means were used in the process of illegal fundraising, it is more likely to be upgraded to the crime of fundraising fraud, and in accordance with the criminal law, the main responsible person can be sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine or confiscation of property.
Qi Yanbing specially reminded investors: "No matter how good Ding Yifeng's depiction and words are, since the regulatory authorities have issued an administrative warning, we must immediately stop investment participation, actively prepare relevant investment evidence, and actively cooperate with relevant administrative investigations, so as to avoid irreparable losses." Of course, if there is further evidence about Ding Yifeng's suspected commercial fraud and illegal fundraising, it should also be submitted to the competent authorities in a timely manner, or timely take complaints, reports, prosecutions and other methods to protect rights as soon as possible, so as not to miss the best opportunity to protect rights, and to avoid the embarrassing situation that may exist in the future that constitutes a "fundraising participant" and cannot be protected by law. ”
Editor-in-charge: Xu Yunqian Editor-in-chief: Gong Peijia