Beijing court accepts P2P fraud case

BEIJING - Beijing First Intermediate People's Court announced Thursday that it is hearing a high-profile peer-to-peer (P2P) fraud case involving tens of billions of yuan.

Investigations suggest that Ezubao, an online peer-to-peer lending platform, has cheated members of the public out of nearly 60 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) through fake investment projects advertized on its website from June 2014 to December 2015. The company reportedly defaulted on loans worth more than 38 billion yuan.

Beijing People's Procuratorate on Dec 15 filed charges of fraudulent fund-raising against Ezubao's parent companies, Yucheng Holdings and Yucheng Global, and ten people. A further 16 individuals were charged with illegally absorbing public deposits.

The defendants were also charged with smuggling precious metals, illegally possessing weapons and undocumented border-crossing.