Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

FUTIAN police recently busted a criminal ring involved in a loan scam, arresting 11 ring members.

On Jan. 21, Futian police received a report from a man surnamed Li who claimed he had been blackmailed for a total of 2.28 million yuan (US$332,880) over a year between 2016 and 2017 after borrowing 300,000 yuan from a loan company.

Facing a shortage of 300,000 yuan for his investment, Li took out a loan in April 2016, through Liu, who claimed to be a vice manager of a consulting company. For the loan, Li finally received 345,000 yuan, but the transaction costs for the loan stood at 800,000 yuan. Li also signed 14 blank contracts including loan contracts and property mortgage contracts.

Between April 2016 and April 2017, Liu and his ring members demanded that Li pay back the loans and forced him to sign more blank loan contracts using threats. This led to high costs in loan transactions. Through the transaction, Li borrowed a total of 2.16 million yuan, but the majority of the money was deducted by Liu under the excuse of transaction costs. Li only received 420,000 yuan in his account.

Knowing that Li was unable to repay the loans, Liu and other members forced him to borrow money from small loan companies that they controlled and to pay back part of the debt with the new loans. They even stayed at Li’s home for more than 10 days to force him to pay the debts.

This May, police arrested 11 members of the ring for blackmail, fictitious court lawsuits and unlawful housing intrusion.