2015-05-13
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Investors call for an investigation of their missing money outside the police department in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province, May 3, 2015.
(Photo courtesy of the 64Tianwang.com human rights website)
Around 2,000 disgruntled creditors gathered outside government buildings in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Wednesday in protest over lost investments in a local finance company, participants said.
More than 3,000 small investors had poured a total of 1.2 billion yuan (U.S. $193 million) into the Chengdu Aobang Financial Guarantee Co. to act as a property developer and lender to small and medium-sized enterprises seeking credit, protesters said.
“More than 2,000 are here today,” protester Li Min told RFA from the protest outside the municipal police department in the provincial capital, Chengdu.
“This is about the Aobang investment company, which is a developer investing in property, and a number of other forms of investment,” he said.
“The police chiefs have come out, and a few of them are talking to our representatives and spokespeople right now,” Li said.
“Some 3,000 people have been negatively affected by this.”
He said the protesters were being watched by several dozen police.
“There are more than 1,000 people here today, and more than 3,000 people are affected, amounting to more than a billion yuan [U.S. 161.2 million],” investor Yan Tafeng said from the scene.
“There haven’t been any clashes of any kind,” she added.
The investors are accusing the company, and related companies, of fraudulent borrowing and of undermining financial stability, as well as cheating ordinary people out of their hard-earned life-savings.
They are calling on police to investigate the case fully for possible collusion between officials and local business.
Aobang denied the accusations in a statement issued last December, and threatened to pursue those responsible for them through legal channels.
Repeated calls to the Aobang Financial Guarantee Co. rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday.
An investor surnamed Tian said similar, though smaller, protests had already taken place in recent months.
She said she and a group of several dozen investors are currently gathering evidence to support a lawsuit to reclaim their lost funds.
“This is a nationwide phenomenon, but these companies that raise money, then abscond, have basically been given their business licenses by the provincial bureau of industry and commerce,” Tian said.
