Procuratorates indict 36,000 for financial crimes in 2016

BEIJING -- Chinese procuratorates nationwide have filed indictments against more than 36,300 financial-crime suspects involved in 23,700 cases, a senior prosecutor said Wednesday.

Chen Guoqing, a senior prosecutor with the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), said that procuratorial agencies in 2016 accepted more than 30,900 cases involving financial charges.

Procuratorates nationwide received more than 9,500 cases of suspected financial fraud, including over 8,200 cases of unlicensed firms accepting and holding public deposits and more than 1,200 cases related to the deceptive raising of capital, according to Chen.

In one high-profile fraud case, Ezubao, an online peer-to-peer lending platform, cheated members of the public out of nearly 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) through fake investment projects it advertized from June 2014 to December 2015. The company reportedly defaulted on loans worth more than 38 billion yuan. The case is currently being heard in Beijing.