DEVELOPING STORY: Phil Ming Xu Of WCM777 May Be Under Arrest In China
UPDATED 3:11 P.M. EDT U.S.A. A report dated today at ShanghaiDaily.com says an individual “surnamed Xu” and associated with “World Capital Market Inc.” is “now in custody” after a police action against a “pyramid scheme” in China.
The PP Blog has contacted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to determine if the person reportedly under arrest in China is “Phil” Ming Xu of the World Capital Market/WCM777 scheme from 2014.
If the individual proves to be the Xu in the SEC case, it would mean that Xu left the United States sometime after being charged civilly by the SEC in March 2014 with a fraud alleged to have gathered tens of millions of dollars. It also potentially means the scheme, which allegedly operated under different names and resulted in the appointment of a receiver by a U.S. federal court, continued offshore after the U.S. action.
Phil Ming Xu resided in Temple City, Calif., the SEC said in 2014.
From Shanghai Daily (italics added):
Last June and August, police received alerts from the People’s Bank of China and the Guangdong branch of China Securities Regulatory Commission that the company and its owners were not qualified to conduct public financing, and a criminal investigation began.
A U.S. criminal probe into World Capital Market and related companies or figures also is believed to be under way.
The WCM777 story in the United States has been consistently bizarre. MLM hucksters, for example, pitched the “program” in churches and claimed the company had given loans for spectacular sums to some top American businesses.
There also was a claim a former CIA operative was involved, that the appearance of “blood moons” in the sky would provide investors guidance, that Ming Xu had acquired a company that produced “Innocence of Muslims,” a film that has been described as anti-Islamic and denigrating to the prophet Muhammad, that Ming Xu was an educator at a purported university known as the Joseph Global Institute.
UPDATE 2:03 P.M. EDT MAY 17 U.S.A. The SEC said today that it didn’t have anything on whether the Xu reportedly under arrest in China is the Xu from the agency’s March 2014 case.
Bloomberg has a story dated May 15 that references multiple alleged fraud schemes in China, including World Capital Market:
SNIPPET:
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Separately, police busted a pyramid scheme with more than 5,800 victims from 28 provinces who lost millions of yuan, Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday, citing the Ministry of Public Security. Employees of Beijing-based World Capital Market Inc. posed as investment bankers and venture capitalists to con investors into buying memberships to its services and “digital assets,” with promises of returns between 60 percent and 80 percent within 100 days, the government news agency said.
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Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-16/wealthroll-owner-confesses-fraud-amid-online-lending-crackdown
Patrick
Checking Chinese news sites. This news broke 10 days ago. Apparently Phil’s a busy fellow. After SEC shut him down he restarted the scam in Hong Kong and China.
I’m translating the news from here:
http://news.jcrb.com/jxsw/201605/t20160516_1614930.html
>>5?6?,?????????,???????????????????,??????????????,????????????
>>… “May 6th, in Shengzhen 2nd incarceration facility, reporter met the arrested suspect, a Mr. Xu. According to Xu, after he graduated from university he worked in media as a producer for a while, then switched to the financial world.”
From what I previously pieced together of Phil Ming Xu’s resume, he used to work for Voice of China, then moved into finance. So that bit seems to fit. However, that may just be a coincidence, and is not really confirmation.
Here’s a bit more…
>>????????????????????,2013?5?,“????”??????????????????????????????????,“????”??????????,?????????????????????,????????????
According to Zhang Zhaohui, deputy chief of Economic Crime Detachment, Zhaoqing Public Security Bureau, Wangtong Miracle was established in May 2013 by a Mr. Xu who claimed to be some “investment bank holding group”. Xu, et al, claimed that they are starting a social capital revolution, using internet, cloud tech, and retail discount system to “magnify capital for people around the world.
>>??2013???,?“????”???????????????????,?????????,???????????,???????????????????“?????”???,??????????
By end of 2013, because the points had accumulated too fast within Wantong Miracle, and withdrawal pressure is mounting, Xu, in order to prevent capital loss, implemented withdrawal limits, increased interval needed for withdrawn, started “repurchase permit” and other programs trying to prevent members from cashing out.
>>??2014?3?,?????“????”??????Global?Unity????,??“????”?????????????,?????????(??????????????)??????(????????????,?????????????????????????,????????????,?????????),???????????,??????????????????????????2014?7?,?????????????????????,????????????????,???????
In March 2014 Xu claimed that the company has been sold to “Global Unity” group, and basicaly forced all member existing “points” to trade for “protoshares” in the new company. The “trading platform” (where old members can sell points to new members, thus cashing out directly) was also announced to further prevent cashing out, and to leverage “trading fees”. In July 2014, Xu added a Hong Kong “AiChen Group”, claiming the merger needed to take down the server and further delayed cashing out.
??2015?1?,????????????????????????????,?????????????????????????,??????????????????×20%×6.3?,?????????????????,?????????????,??????????????????????×20%×6???????(???????0.3?????),??????????????
In Jan 2015, Xu, along with father (also Xu) and cousin (Tang) started a YiTong company in Shenzhen, supposedly held by a Kingdom Financial Group, and asked all members of Wantong to put in more money into this company in order to activate their new cybercurrency AiCoin (LoveCoin) and convert all Wantong members into Kingdom members.
??2015?7???,????????????????(??)???????????(??)???????????(??)?????10?????????,??????????????QT????????????????????????,?????????“IPL?”??(?????????????????),???10??????3???24???????,???????????????????????,???????????????
From July 2015 till now, Xu, et all established Kingdom Financial Holding (Shenzhen) Hundred Net Tech (Shenzehn), Love-Multi Media (Shenzhen), and over 10 other companies and basically spread over all media including WeChat, SMS, Chatrooms, Podcasts, Videos, websites, that claimed Kingdom will soon IPO and soon all of these dozen companies will IPO, and thus, massively defrauded the populace to purchase these companies’ “protoshares” and illegally raised funds through the public (via sale of securities”
(PP, your comment broke the Chinese parts. I’ll have to do a full translation later and post it on my site, but there’s no doubt this is the same Phil Ming Xu scam.)
It is indeed Phil Ming Xu’s scam, revived in China. Here’s an article with a photo supplied by the victims, featuring Phil himself.
No idea if he was arrested though. I’m not a betting man.
http://tech.ifeng.com/a/20160514/41608055_0.shtml
You’ll remember this, K. Chang:
MORE FROM MLM LA-LA LAND: Is It A Taunt? Purported Successor Firm To WCM777/Kingdom777 Uses Image Of Golden Pyramid
https://patrickpretty.com/2014/02/26/more-from-mlm-la-la-land-is-it-a-taunt-purported-successor-firm-to-wcm777kingdom777-uses-image-of-golden-pyramid/
Appreciate your input on this. Thank you.
Patrick
I remember quite well, PP. If he did get arrested in China, he’ll get much more… deserving punishment than American SEC can give him.
Yep, an execution he will get
Pretty sure CHina don’t execute economic criminals any more, but he may get a penal labor camp. That would be deserving.
Full translation up. I went to the LegalDaily.com.cn source.
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2016/05/breaking-news-wcm777-smashed-again-in.html
I may do the XinhuaNet version later, but they basically say the same thing.
2nd translation is up. Turns out the ifeng article I tried translate earlier had more details.
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2016/05/another-article-of-how-wcm-got-smashed.html
Thank you, K. Chang.
Patrick
Plot thickens. Further digging into Chinese News shows that Xu (who may be our Phil Ming Xu) was actually arrested LAST NOVEMBER!
Found a third article that claimed that WCM relaunch in China was actually stopped back in November 2015, and Xu was arrested then. Wonder what prompted the news to appear now?
Report here from a HK newspaper said that Shenzhen police arrested 11 suspects in Shenzhen as a part of multi-agency sweep of a scam using ‘AiBi (LoveCoin)’ as investment instrument. Article appeared on January 15, 2016, describing action back in November 2015!
2015????????????????????????10??????????????
In first half of 2015, several Chaoqing citizens reported to police, that they invested over 100K RMB into a certain “internet finance” company, cannot get money back, believe they’ve been scammed.
?????????????????????????????????
At the same time, at Shenzhen and Guangzhou there are other victims who also alleged they’ve been victimized by the same company, and the amount of money involved is staggering.
???????????????????????????????
Guangdong Public Security Bureau took the lead and coordinated Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chaoqing police to establish a taskforce to start investigation.
??11?11??????????????????????????????????????????
Last year (2015) Nov 11th, Shenzhen police followed lead, and took action against illegal securities offering and financial pyramid company Wang(something)Tong Investment Development Ltd,
?????????????????????????????11????
King(something)Holding Investment Company, and various subsidiaries and commenced full raid, and arrested Xu, et al for total of 11 suspects.
?????????28???5,800???????????10???
Initial tally shows that this case involved 28 provinces and over 5800 investors, and over 100 million RMB.
NOLINK://paper.wenweipo.com/2016/01/15/YO1601150013.htm
So it seems they arrested the suspects (11), grilled them some, arrested a couple more (6?), then gave it to XinhuaNet for international distribution.
I received a report in May 2015 that Ming Xu actually was arrested in March 2015 while entering China on a bogus passport. I was unable to nail down the report.
Thanks for your effort on this.
Patrick
Why would he even NEED a bogus passport to enter China? He’s a Chinese citizen (US resident alien). Makes no sense. IMHO, of course.