Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, surrendered himself. Is this another P2P bubble bursting?

Leifeng.com reported on December 27 that this morning, the official Weibo account of Nanjing Public Security Bureau @平安南京 posted that Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, surrendered to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau on December 26, 2017 for suspected illegal crimes. The news caused an uproar in all circles, "Is it another Ezubao?"

The official website is currently unavailable

Qianbao.com was founded in 2012. The operating model of the website is that after users register as Qianbao.com members and pay a certain amount of deposit, they can go to the "task hall" to receive tasks such as signing in, watching ads, filling out questionnaires, and trying games. After completing the tasks, they can get certain income. For example, if a user can pay a deposit of 100,000 yuan and guarantee to complete a certain amount of "watching ads" tasks every day, they can get a minimum of 4,000 yuan and a maximum of over 10,000 yuan per month.

Investor screenshots

Compared with general P2P platforms, Qianbao.com is more complex and claims to be a "social + mobile e-commerce based trading platform." It is said that it currently has nearly 100 million members and over 480,000 merchants.

According to Leifeng.com, many investors could not accept the news released by Nanjing police today. Some people expressed doubts about the authenticity of the news on the official Weibo account, "Is the (Weibo) account stolen?" The extremely high annualized returns have led many people to invest tens of thousands of yuan, and even sell their houses to invest millions of yuan.

In fact, Qianbao.com has been surrounded by doubts for five years. It is not uncommon to hear people accusing it of being a "Ponzi scheme", "You are greedy for other people's interest, and other people are greedy for your principal." Some netizens said that many people who are still playing Qianbao.com know the situation, but they just don't believe that they are the last wave of "fools." In addition, Qianbao.com has a wide range of offline advertisements, "especially in Nanjing, Hangzhou and other places", and many elderly people also participate in it.

As early as September 5, 2016, Paobao.com received a letter of concern from the Shandong Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, pointing out that the company was suspected of illegally issuing securities. Qianbao.com's e-commerce trading platform under Nanjing Qianbao Information Media Co., Ltd., an affiliate controlled by the company's actual controller Zhang Xiaolei, issued 25,000 "Qianbao shares" in January 2016 and promised that the "Qianbao shares" could be converted into shares of Paobao.com.

In August this year, there were also media reports that Qianbao.com's Shanghai headquarters had been vacated and Zhang Xiaolei could not be contacted, suspected of running away. At the same time, the Qianbao APP could not withdraw money.

Zhang Xiaolei

In addition, according to Leifeng.com, the founder Zhang Xiaolei also has a history of fraud. In the 2003 Pan-American Asia incident, Zhang Xiaolei sent more than 50 young football players to study in South America in the name of sending football students overseas. However, the young players lived in difficult conditions in Uruguay, and the whereabouts of about 10 million yuan of funds were unknown. After being exposed by the media, Zhang Xiaolei was sentenced to prison for fraud.

Since the beginning of this year, the state has emphasized financial stability and has taken heavy measures in the fields of virtual currency, cash loans, etc. The main management method for the P2P industry is the "Interim Measures for the Management of Business Activities of Online Lending Information Intermediaries" jointly issued by multiple ministries and commissions on August 24, 2016, which sets requirements for investment limits and fund custody, and the special rectification work on Internet financial risks that has continued since April last year also includes policies for this field. In addition, according to recent media reports, regulatory authorities in many places have launched a new round of P2P online lending platform investigations since October to investigate the progress of the special rectification of regional P2P online lending before the end of September 2017.