A court in southern China has jailed 24 people for defrauding investors of nearly Rmb10bn ($1.5bn), the latest in a series of financial scams that have proliferated in the country’s unruly and largely unregulated shadow banking sector.
The official Xinhua news agency said 230,000 investors, mainly senior citizens and many of whom invested their life savings, were affected by the scam in the decade to 2012, making it one of the largest to be made public.
The court found that Guangdong Bangjia Leasing Co set up four businesses in the southern province that borders Hong Kong, along with branches and subsidiaries across China, luring investors with promises of returns of up to 47 per cent a year.