113 officials in Hunan were investigated on suspicion of ＂illegal fund-raising incident in Xiangxi＂
According to Caijing, Teng Wancui, member of the Standing Committee of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province, and Minister of United Front Work, was "double-regulated" by the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection on October 24 due to serious violations of discipline such as illegal fund-raising. Up to now, 113 cadres of party and government organs, enterprises and institutions have been investigated for the alleged "illegal fund-raising incident in Xiangxi".
The early withdrawal of officials caused the fund-raising chain to break.
The reporter was informed that Teng Wancui was taken to Changsha for investigation by the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection more than 10 days ago, and her husband Liu, who works for Xiangxi Agricultural Bank, was also investigated. According to informed sources, Teng Wancui’s main problem is to participate in illegal fund-raising and withdraw principal and interest in advance, and the amount of fund-raising is huge. In addition, Teng Wancui is also suspected of taking bribes and participating in mine management.
In recent years, a number of enterprises in Xiangxi have long used the promise of high interest returns as bait to attract private funds, involving thousands of fund-raising households, absorbing more than 10 billion yuan, and a large number of government officials participated in fund-raising In mid-2008, some government officials involved in fund-raising got the information and withdrew the principal and interest in advance, which triggered the fund-raising chain to break.
Since then, in less than half a month, some financing enterprises in Jishou City, the seat of Xiangxi Prefecture, have taken away at least 1 billion yuan, and most of them have broken their capital chains. Worried that it would be difficult to recover the principal, on September 3 and 4, more than 10,000 fund-raisers gathered twice to contain the Xiangxi government and the railway station, and then the police force was used to calm down. Since then, fund-raisers have blocked the Xiangxi government twice.
Conceal and lie when being investigated.
The reporter was informed that during the investigation by the Hunan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and the task force of the Provincial Supervision Department, Teng Wancui had serious intentional concealment and false reporting when explaining that he, his spouse and his children participated in illegal fund-raising in Xiangxi.
According to the reporter’s understanding, Teng Wancui is mainly suspected of participating in the illegal fund-raising of Xiangxi Rongchang Group and Jishou Guangcai Real Estate Development Company, and is closely related to these two enterprises, and Teng Wancui once paid more attention to Guangcai Real Estate Company.
Teng Wancui was born on December 22, 1959 in Fenghuang County, Xiangxi Prefecture, Hunan Province. She was a native Tujia female cadre and ranked fourth in the Standing Committee of Xiangxi Prefecture before the incident.
According to the relevant personage of Xiangxi government, Teng Wancui is bold by nature and good at approaching leaders. Teng himself was recruited into the Grain Station of Fenghuang County Grain Bureau in his early years and later turned into a cadre. Since then, Teng, as a female cadre of ethnic minorities, has been sent to South-Central University for Nationalities to study, and later served as a member of the Party Committee, office director and theoretical teacher of the Party School of Fenghuang County Committee, and has since embarked on a career. Since December 2002, he has been promoted to the Standing Committee of Xiangxi State Committee and Minister of United Front Work.
People close to the task force revealed to reporters that Teng Wancui was also suspected of taking advantage of his position to accept bribes; Participate in mining and tourism project development, and obtain illegal benefits from it.
In fact, Teng Wancui is only one of many party and government officials suspected of illegal fund-raising. In mid-October, the preliminary investigation results released by the Hunan provincial government showed that 113 cadres of party and government organs, enterprises and institutions had participated in fund-raising, among which quite a few were party and government officials at or above the county level.
More than half of Jishou’s families participate.
Many residents sell houses to raise funds.
Private fund-raising in Xiangxi has been going on for some time, but large-scale fund-raising began in 2002. By 2008, illegal fund-raising reached a fever pitch, with monthly interest generally above 8%, and some enterprises even as high as 10% to 12%.
According to the analysis report released by the People’s Bank of China Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture Sub-branch in July 2008, by the end of June 2008, the scale of private lending in the autonomous prefecture was nearly 7 billion yuan, accounting for more than half of the total loans of financial institutions in this region in the same period.
At present, the Xiangxi government has sent a working group to conduct liquidation of 12 enterprises with large illegal financing. A police officer involved in the investigation of illegal fund-raising told reporters that it is conservatively estimated that the total amount of illegal fund-raising may exceed 10 billion yuan.
On September 4th, Jishou Municipal Government issued a notice to register the fund-raising situation, and set up 28 fund-raising registration points in the urban area to check the fund-raising situation. The urban population of Jishou City is less than 200,000, and more than half of the families have participated in illegal fund-raising. In eight counties under the jurisdiction of Xiangxi, such as Longshan, Fenghuang, Guzhang and Huayuan, illegal fund-raising is also quite serious.
In addition to the above-mentioned key financing enterprises, the local public security organs are still investigating more small financing enterprises. According to police sources, "the financing amount of these investigated financing enterprises is about 200 million yuan, and some of them have been found to be suspected of fraud."
Illegal fund-raising has a great influence on all aspects of Xiangxi. The reporter learned in Ganzhou New District of Jishou City that the Xuantan community, which has the highest amount of illegal fund-raising, has raised more than 100 million yuan. Many residents even sell houses to raise funds and borrow money, and their lives are in a difficult situation because of no return of principal and interest. (Reporter Ouyang Hongliang)
Editor: Li Xian