FOUR senior executives of a Shenzhen-based technology company went on trial at Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court on Wednesday for allegedly luring senior residents to invest in their nonexistent business, and setting up their companies with illegal financing, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

    By luring the seniors to invest in their so-called high-end health care products, the company made empty promises of high interest rewards of over 24 percent annually, according to the procuratorate’s charges against the company.

    The technology company, located in Pingshan Subdistrict of Longgang District in eastern Shenzhen, was founded by a suspect surnamed Sun with illegal financing in March 2014. The other three suspects, who stood trial this week, held key positions in the company.

    Based in Shenzhen, the company had registered to set up six branch companies around China since establishment, but it only produced a small number of fake models to cheat investors.

    The total amount of money involved in the scam exceeded 31.4 million yuan (US$4.7 million) with as many as 983 people have been cheated to invest in the company’s fake projects.

    The staffers from the company headquarters and the branch companies raked in large sums of money with 48 percent of the invested funds as their commission.

    The procuratorate charged the four executives with committing fraud with illegal funding at Wednesday’s court hearing, but the four denied they had committed criminal fraud.

    The gang justified their behavior as being for the purpose of starting a business, not for scams, but the four admitted that they had collected funds illegally.

    The case will be further investigated and heard. (Zhang Qian)