Ex-manager jailed for illegal public savings pooling

A former general manager of a local investment company who cheated investors out of nearly 100 million yuan (US$15 million) has been sentenced to three years behind bars for illegal public savings pooling.

Jing’an District People’s Court, said the defendant, surnamed Li, asked sales agents at his firm Yuetong to raise funds through traditional ways of making phone calls and soliciting on the road. Clients were promised  high yields with the return of their investment, with an annualized return hitting 15 percent.

From January 2015 to July 2016, Li and his sales team collected more than 97 million yuan of public deposits, investigation showed.

However, last summer it emerged that investors had lost all their money. During a subsequent police investigation, Li handed himself over to police.

As he admitted guilt and has returned his ill-gotten gains, he was granted a lighter sentence, the court said, sentencing him to three years in jail and fining him 100,000 yuan.

According to the court, companies like Yuetong often promised extremely high returns to attract investors, while usually annual interest of financial products sold by banks or legal institutions do not exceed 5 percent.