The end of the shift was long past, and the coordination meeting on how to deal with the unpaid wages of the boss and the collection of debts by the employees was finally drawing to a close, and I symbolically circled the minutes of the meeting in order to highlight the key points while looking forward to the adjournment of this long meeting. 3 hours of discussion and coordination, a series of measures were developed, which boiled down to one sentence: “First stabilize and control, then After the resolution, after the accountability.
But the plan can never catch up with change, the resolution of each petition case is not possible overnight, can only be a mud carrot eat a section of rubbing a section. In the smoky conference room, the secretary of the political and legal committee in the final deployment and division of labor, frowning, squinting, I do not know if it is entangled in the complexity of the case, or by the second-hand smoke confined in the conference room.
A rush of telephone ringing, the deputy director of the Public Security Bureau in charge of economic investigation while getting up and walking out, while awkwardly gestured: this is an emergency work phone – when such calls come, usually nothing good, the conference room was suddenly quiet, everyone was afraid that the workers who were demanding their wages had made some new moves.
“Secretary, good news!” The deputy director of public security pushed the door in, his face was full of relaxation and happiness, “The one from ‘Pan Asia’, Ahua, was caught in a robbery in a foreign country!”
My heart thumped, and then my face burned and my palms sweated, as if I had been exposed, and I fidgeted. This “good news” and the topic of the afternoon meeting are two different things, but from the reaction of several leaders here who understand the original story, Ahua’s arrest seems to be more exciting to them than the emotional stability of the workers.
I felt a bit dazed: was it really that Hua? How did he go to the robbery?
1
When I met A-hwa, he was already in his early 50s.
A Hua when he was young, social mix, the name in our small county was also very significant. Later, when he grew older and took the right path, he slowly faded out of the circle of fighting and killing, and fewer and fewer people knew about his “glorious history” locally. No one expected that, after half a century, he was the “key petitioner” identity, back in the spotlight.
In 2011, the Pan Asia Non-Ferrous Metals Exchange (hereinafter referred to as Pan Gold), the world’s largest rare metals exchange, was opened, claiming that no expertise in rare metals investment and trading was required, and that one could enjoy an annualized return of about 13% by simply playing money into the platform. The media propaganda, the celebrity stand, and the many glamorous packages have made countless people with dreams of getting rich but suffering from lack of access flock to the platform, constantly topping up their dreams of wealth. After four years of madness, the capital game finally came to an abrupt end because of the broken capital chain. It was difficult to get back the 43 billion yuan of funds of 220,000 investors from more than 20 provinces across China.
It was at that time that Ahua started to petition for his rights as a victim of Pan Asia. He was the leader of the Pan Asian investment rights group in our area and an active member of the Pan Asian investment rights activities in the surrounding counties.
Ahua registered a loss of 600,000 yuan, which is nothing in the eyes of those investors who advocate a radical approach to defend their rights, but he always seems to be extra active whenever he organizes petitions and disturbances. Originally, in this group, the amount of loss is a symbol of status, and the more losses, the more the right to speak, but “only” 600,000 but so hard, once those who lost millions of people think Ahua is the government sent undercover.
We, the government staff in charge of the petition, were also puzzled.
Ahua, like other investors here, only went to the headquarters of Panjin at the beginning to understand the situation, or to ask the local government to “do justice” in a group, without much direct contact with us. After all, they knew very well that their losses were not caused locally, and they could not solve the problem by going to the local government departments. But as time went by, they traveled hard and made no progress in defending their rights, and all their efforts and efforts were in vain. After a period of pause, they tried to use the means of collective petition to put pressure on the local government, hoping that this can attract the attention of the state, hoping that the state to help them recover their capital and restore their losses.
Such petitioning reasons and demands are obviously unreasonable, and the means and methods are also illegal. When receiving these investment and financial petition problems, we will habitually “educate” the parties: “Now you have to find the government to cover your losses, did you think of giving the government dividends when you made money?” Most of the victims knew they were in the wrong and chose to remain silent, but Ahua was the only one who was grumpy and often argued with the staff with his own “sophomoric reasoning”, making a scene in the interview hall.
Finally, I was assigned to receive A-hwa, because I was the only one left who had never had a red face with him.
2
The first time I had formal contact with A-hwa was when he went to the province with some investors from the surrounding counties and was “intercepted” by our petition bureau. When he sat at the petition reception window, his mouth was still cursing. I was nervous, a moment of speech, actually popped out a sentence: “Uncle Hua, I’ll get you a glass of water.”
Once the words were out, Ahua was silent. Half a long time, he corrected his sitting posture, slightly disgusted whispered to me: “You should ask me what is the request of this petition.”
I let out an “oh” and then completed my first petition reception under his guidance.
“The Pan Asian case was progressing slowly, and the anxiety and anger of investors from all over the world were increasing day by day. The Internet was full of questions and denunciations, and there were many petitions and demonstrations all over the world.
A-hwa had to travel around a lot during that period of time in order to petition for an explanation. We really suffered a lot with him. According to the rules of the petition system, every time A-hwa made a “non-petition” (an irregular petition, such as a petition at a different level, a set of petitions, or a disturbance), we, as his local government department, did not fulfill our management responsibility and were deducted points. The “points deduction” means that the leaders will be interviewed and held accountable, which is a big deal, so all departments at all levels treat the “non-visits” with great importance.
We started to focus on the local investors’ group in Panjin, and put in “our own people” to keep an eye on the group’s rights in real time – to put it bluntly, to grasp their petition plans and stop them in time. Ahua is the core of this group, as soon as the wind blows, the leadership sent me to go to him to chat. Over time, he and I have become “forgettable”.
In public and private, I have more than once to guide him: “you also lost 600,000, not to desperate, and the matter has basically been finalized, why bother this effort around the petition, life and limb?”
At first, he always joked with me, saying that he was alone and unattached; he also said that he had no money, and that the expenses for food and lodging for the petition were all raised by “pan-friends” (pan-funded investors), so “it’s like a publicly funded trip”.
Once I asked him, “Don’t you have a daughter, who has also become a family?
Before I could finish my sentence, his expression instantly changed from cynical to suspicious. The conversation instantly fell into an awkward silence, and I realized that I might have said something I shouldn’t have said and hit his soft spot.
However, he did not bother with me, after all, after a period of time, he also knew that I was not much of a city, but also nothing malicious, instead of changing the subject and began to tell me about his former life. I’m afraid he resented the petition and no longer deliberately discourage him.
3
When he talked about the scenery of his youth, Ahua became a storyteller, and the experience of his youth in society was like a serialized novel, which he told in his mouth. At the end of each chapter, he did not forget to add: “I was great back then, no matter where I went, when I said ‘Ahua’, everyone would give a face.”
I originally imagined that the A-hwa in front of me was the “Chan Ho Nam” who was tired of the jungle and retired from the city, and would tell me about a real “kook” around him. But from his tedious, drawn-out narrative, I only saw a poor kid struggling to make ends meet in the past. The “scenery” that he keeps emphasizing may only be a recognition of his personal efforts, or maybe it’s just his wishful thinking.
Ahua was adopted as a child, and his adoptive parents passed away before he graduated from junior high school. Although he had an uncle who was willing to give him a bite to eat, he did not want to live in a fence and chose to be self-reliant. Since he was a teenager, he has traveled extensively, and although he has not saved much money, in his words, “What have I not seen and experienced?”
After drifting around for a few years, when he returned to the county in his early 20s, Ahua immediately “mixed up”. Because of the “strict crackdown” in 1983, all the hooligans around the county, big and small, seemed to be right and wrong, which cleared a lot of obstacles for A-hwa and his generation to go into “society” later. This group of young, strong, intelligent young people in the gap between the two times quickly grew, and became the first generation of the few local “social people”.
At that time out of the mix, not divided into what gangs, nor what generation, it seems that the whole county is a family. When you meet your brothers in the community, the good ones directly report their names, the average ones have to report a “I’m the XX’s”, we will give each other more or less face, look after each other.
At that time almost the entire county know a Hua, “mixed with the big factory station”.
The “Big Factory” is the name of a town next to our county, because the town has one of the largest cotton mills in the county, so named. The cotton mill is like a magnet that draws young people from the surrounding areas together. Most of the young people are female workers, so the idle young men in the community also like to gather around this large factory. Over time, the cotton mill as the center, radiation out of a lively and prosperous “factory street”.
If the “Factory Street” was a playground for A-hwa’s pastime, the “Big Factory Station” was a fertile ground for their struggle.
The factory station actually did not exist, because the original bus station set up in front of the cotton mill could not meet the demand for passenger and freight transport, so the drivers and passengers tacitly agreed to meet on a piece of wasteland not far from the “factory street” and formed a station on their own initiative.
The station was like a wild beast, and A-hwa and his cadre of fans were active here, “volunteering” to maintain the operational order of the station. At that time, many operating vehicles were privately contracted, including small “noodles” that kept circling the county to solicit passengers, medium-sized buses that ran back and forth between the city and the countryside, and a few long-distance buses. Ahua they plan the route of the city shuttle according to the condition of the car, according to the passenger flow scheduling shuttle bus departure time and frequency, maintain the security around the station, deal with rip-offs and halfway unloading disputes, but also to stop the competition of foreign transit vehicles pulling passengers with goods.
Although all these arrangements were made without any rules and regulations and were based on A-hwa’s personal wisdom and social experience, it must be said that at that time, under A-hwa’s leading management, all the affairs of Dazhan Station were well organized.
At that time, part of A-hwa’s income came from the share money paid by operating vehicles entering and leaving the station, which sounded like “protection money”, but because A-hwa and his little brothers actually did a lot of things, the drivers were happy to pay the money. After having some money in hand, Ahua joined several buses to run long distance, which became his main source of income later.
On the whole, Ahua did not accumulate much money during the years when he was “king of the land” at the Dazhang station. He was a righteous man, low standard of share money, others gave a share of how much they did not care, but a group of small brothers who followed him generously. His ability and personality were recognized by everyone, but also by the many female workers of the cotton mill admiration. Later, A-hwa started a family with a female worker in the cotton mill.
About the family, he never wanted to talk to me in detail. Maybe there is something to hide, or maybe he is an “old petitioner” and is concerned that we will bring his family out to pressure him.
Anyway, I never wanted to stop him from petitioning by tapping into his social connections, so I didn’t ask if he didn’t tell me.
4
I asked A-hwa, “How did you ‘change your ways’ later?”
He told me that later the Dazhan station grew bigger and bigger, and at one point the limelight overshadowed the county station. “The spread is big, there are more things, people are also mixed, a variety of contradictions and interests are intertwined, the force is not able to.” Just in time for the government to integrate Dazhan Station, in order to appease the people, Ahua and a few other young brothers as the “founder” of Dazhan Station, were hired as administrators. Ahua did a period of time, and felt that it was not interesting, after starting a family and having children, they wanted to clear the relationship with the circle of “social people”, so they left the station.
A Hua regular business has been more than 30 years old, he went to Shanghai to sell a few years of aquatic products, in good time, earned a lot of money. But the influence of the previous social mix, “rich began not to learn, eating, drinking, whoring and gambling, his wife was angry, took his daughter back to his mother’s house. I did not stay, gave them a sum of money to the mother and daughter, a person living a good life of ease and comfort.
Before the daughter went to elementary school, his wife and Ahua divorced. Without a woman at home, the business soon went wrong, and the money Ahua had previously earned soon bottomed out. Then he muddled through a few years, “slowly think about themselves, think that the play also played, the enjoyment also enjoyed, it is time to close the mind, think of soaring, and then find his wife and daughter reunion – but the rise again which is so easy, a wink daughter are old. In order to get rich sooner, so I entered the pit of ‘Pan Asia'”.
The re-emergence of an elderly gangster
I said: “You are also an old man, this kind of pit also dare to jump into ah?”
He laughed: “What am I? The old man can’t guard against new scams! The bank president was also cheated, people specializing in dealing with money can be trapped, not to mention civil servants, teachers and doctors, a large number – but those people have a serious job, not convenient.”
Think about it, he seems to be a little unconvinced: “Besides, which trap can let you see it is a pit ah? Now that something has happened, you all talk about why you didn’t find a formal institution to invest in. Before the accident, what was so irregular about ‘Pan Asia’? There are approvals and red chapters, and the advertisements are so high that many celebrities praise it for ‘reserving rare metals for the benefit of the country and the people’ ……”
I asked, “Do you know anything about rare metals and dare to invest without knowing anything about them?”
He said, “I did not dare at first, but asked some investors and the platform’s customer service, also checked a lot of information, a general understanding of its operation and profit model, think there is no problem. If it is investing in rare metals to lose money, I will admit it, but in fact the vast majority of us are not interested in rare metals trading at all, do not understand, and do not dare. We invested our money in the ‘Pan Asia’ ‘daily gold treasure’, similar to the balance of the treasure, it said that every day you can get 3 per 10,000 of the investment amount of earnings, a year the maximum return can reach 13%. It also said that the day of investment the next day earnings to the account, the principal and interest can be withdrawn at any time, no commission.”
Hearing this, I can’t help but interject: “You think this is a loan shark ah!”
Ahua asked in return, “A 13% return a year can also be called usury? The balance of the earnings are 7 points. There are many ‘money lenders’ in the society, with a monthly interest rate of 5 cents and 10 cents, those are called loan sharks!”
I didn’t bother to argue with him: “But the return is still inflated, don’t you have any doubts?”
Ahua thought about it and lowered his voice to reply: “I did have doubts, I have been in business after all, and I know that not many businesses can have such high profits – but I thought it was a new weapon, because it was a financial innovation. I blame the ‘Pan Asia’ disguise is too good, it tells you that some buyers on the platform want to buy goods, but the money is temporarily unable to turnover, so entrust you with the money invested in the ‘day gold treasure’ to buy goods on the platform, these buyers just temporarily can not pay the full amount, in order to show the strength and In order to show their strength and sincerity, they will first pay 20% deposit as a guarantee that they will definitely pick up the goods from you, and after they pay in full, you will give them the goods – the goods are in your hands, the platform has 20% deposit, and you can get 13% interest after the job is done, you are not tempted? ‘Panasia’ also said that the interest mainly comes from the commission of the platform transaction and some of the merchants’ breach of contract, which all sounds reasonable.”
“600,000 is not a small amount of money, real money, how can you give it away?”
Ahua sighed and said slowly: “I don’t remember where I saw the advertisement, anyway, at that time a lot of propaganda Panjin Institute, I observed for a period of time, I tried to invest 20,000, found that the operation is not difficult, the income is also good. Later, I got to know many people who invested in ‘Pan Asia’, and when we got together, we were all touting ‘Pan Asia’, and when I saw that the money was going up every day in ‘Rikinbao’, it was as if I had been brainwashed, and I had no more doubts about I was brainwashed and didn’t have any doubts about it. After investing for more than a year, I found that the platform was running quite well and I didn’t hear any negative news, plus at that time many stars and TV stations were helping to advertise it, so I was more convinced, so I kept investing like a chicken blood, thinking to get a handful and get out.”
A Hua paused, see me not to talk, and said: “You can not say I am what ‘gambler’s mentality’, the last time your petition bureau surnamed Jiang said I was a gambler, I immediately fumed. I am an investment, not buy big buy small, is after observation and thinking, is prudent. To take a step back, if I say I am gambling, then this gambling platform has been open for so long, why doesn’t your government go and take care of it? Still allow it to go around propaganda, wooing and cheating!”
5
Ahua told me that he remembered clearly that at the beginning of 2015, there was a delay in withdrawing funds from “Rikinbao” for the first time, followed by the start of the limit; in April, his funds in “Rikinbao” could no longer be withdrawn; in July, even the funds in his personal account at PanGold were “frozen”.
In July, even the funds in his personal account at Panjinbao were “frozen”. At one time, the news of Panjinbao’s problems started to spread and fermented continuously, and more and more investors asked for their funds back, which led to the complete breakage of Pan Asia’s capital chain.
According to the official analysis of the Panjin Institute, the reason why “Pan Asia” could not circulate its funds was that some investment institutions took advantage of the slowdown in macroeconomic growth to short non-ferrous metals to take advantage of it, for example, they made the electronic futures “indium” price drop from 550 yuan in six months through futures trading. The precipitous drop has invariably intensified the panic of many rare metals upstream and downstream industry chains, making many purchasing enterprises afraid to take delivery of goods, leading to the deterioration of the liquidity of the pan-exchange; secondly, the bull market in stocks that started at the end of 2014 has caused a large number of investors to transfer their funds out of “Rikinbao” one after another to invest in the stock market. “As a result, the size of Panjin’s fund pool plummeted.
But some people told Ahua that Pan Gold was a Ponzi scheme from the beginning: “The real trading volume on the platform is pitifully small, and the buyers who entrust you to buy goods are fake. You invest the money to buy goods, the supplier can take 80% (because the platform price is higher than the market price, the supplier takes 80% not to lose), the remaining 20% ‘Pan Asia’ will stay, the principal you redeem, the interest withdrawn and the ‘Pan Asia’ expenses and income The remaining 20% of ‘Pan Asia’ stays, the principal you redeem, the interest you withdraw, and ‘Pan Asia’s’ expenses and income, all come out of the 20%, and the new investors’ money is not enough to pay for it.
Ahua finally came to his senses: putting aside the pretense of investing in rare metals and the gimmick of trading forms, “Pan Asia” itself did not create any value to bring him income, but only the money of the latter investors to pay back the money of the first investors, and was destined to come to a halt at that moment.
I didn’t know what to say, so I could only give him a word of relief when he was telling the story, and let him take his breath away.
He said that his daughter, whom he had not seen for many years, contacted him and told him that she was going to marry someone else. As if he saw the hope, he thought he could invest more so that he could buy his daughter a beautiful dowry with the dividends. I didn’t expect to end up empty, “now I’m embarrassed to answer my daughter’s phone”.
Later, during the conversation with Hua, we learned that after tasting the sweetness given by “Pan Asia”, Hua, who is very affectionate, wanted to bring a group of poor relatives around him to get rich together, and pulled many people in. But he didn’t expect that such a good platform was a scam.
Although A-hwa’s relatives and friends did not invest much money and did not hear any complaints after the loss, A-hwa always felt that he had harmed those who trusted him and was afraid that his friends and relatives would misunderstand that he had taken a percentage from it, so he vowed to help them get a statement and prove his innocence.
I think this may explain why he petitioned around so hard.
6
I had intermittent contact with A-hwa for more than a year, and then I stopped receiving petitioners because I was transferred to another job, so I broke off contact with him. Before the job transfer, I made a special effort to meet with Hua and advised him very sincerely to stop petitioning.
I didn’t expect that he agreed without hesitation, and said he was ready to go out to work. I thought he was probably just giving me “face” by saying that.
When the news of A-hwa’s arrest for robbery came, I never really believed that he would do such a stupid thing. Later I learned from a police officer handling the case that in the past few years, Ahua had been working abroad and occasionally participated in some petitioning activities called by the investment groups. Ahua revealed during the interrogation that he had long been tired of this life of petitioning, and that he had taken the initiative to “stop petitioning” and felt sorry for the people who trusted him. He admitted to the police that he wanted to rob the money, because there is no money to sustain life, “odd jobs are not easy to find, the salary can not get a while.
He finally and the police said: “I do not want to be so human and ghostly, robbing some money, perhaps to rise again, success or failure to give an account of themselves.”
I speculate that he may be more want to give his family and friends and relatives an explanation it.
This year, seeing the frequent news of financial platforms “bursting”, looking at the streets with “a certain wealth”, “a certain financial”, “a certain investment” signs of the size of the store, I always think of the robbery sentenced to seven years of Ahua, remembering his simple and philosophical words when we chatted: “Investment is too simple, open a business.
“Investing is too easy, just open an account; investing is too difficult, it will take my whole life.”
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