Hundreds of Chinese investors learned the hard way that high returns come with higher risks after JYS Group’s spectacular collapse in April 2025. The company, which had raised a whopping ¥1.34 billion (roughly $180 million), came crashing down when its chairman, Lin Chunhao, decided to skip town and head to the UK. His farewell? A WeChat message. Classy.
The scheme was textbook fraud from the start. JYS Group lured retail investors through financial literacy seminars across major Chinese cities, promising mouth-watering returns between 6% and 9% annually. The hook? They claimed connections to state entities through their management company, Shenzhen Haiboxin Project Management Co., Ltd. Spoiler alert: those connections weren’t real. Sales representatives aggressively pushed investors to commit more than $80,000 to the schemes.
Money poured in through family and community networks, with investors believing they’d found their golden ticket. Instead, their hard-earned cash was dumped into a toxic cocktail of P2P lending, cryptocurrency gambling, and stock market speculation. Similar to the infamous dot-com crash, recovery of investments could take over a decade. Surprise, surprise – it all went up in smoke.
Lin Chunhao, apparently feeling a bit chatty before his great escape, claimed personal losses exceeding $96 million. But here’s the kicker – he announced his UK arrival through a group chat message, basically saying “Sorry, folks, company’s broke, and I’m not coming back.” Talk about a digital Irish goodbye.
The aftermath was predictable. Shenzhen’s Economic Crime Investigation Division swooped in, only to find empty offices and zero staff. Both companies are now under criminal investigation, with authorities scrambling to piece together what happened to all that money.
Meanwhile, investors who trusted their neighbors’ hot tips about JYS are left holding the bag. The collapse sent shockwaves through Guangdong province, leaving authorities to deal with a mess of angry investors demanding their money back.
But with the boss sipping tea in Britain and company coffers emptier than a politician’s promises, chances of recovery look about as likely as finding a bargain in central London.
