Taiwan's Jinlung Technology Company im.B Ponzi Scheme: CEO Sentenced to 16 Years in First Instance

The im.B platform, which claimed to match lending and investment, was actually involved in a fraudulent scheme of counterfeit debts amounting to 9 billion New Taiwan Dollars. It used celebrity endorsements or photos to package itself as a "Ponzi scheme," leading to thousands of victims across Taiwan. The Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted the mastermind, Zeng Yaofeng, his girlfriend Zhang Shufen, and over 30 others last year in 2023 on charges including violations of the Banking Act. After a trial, the Taipei District Court on 8/1 sentenced Zeng Yaofeng to 16 years and 6 months in prison in the first instance, with the option to appeal.

Establishment of im.B Platform Involved in Raising Nearly NT$9 Billion

Taiwan's Jinlong Technology Co., through its im.B platform, attracted investors under the guise of real estate and discounted bills. The platform's salespeople falsely guaranteed annual interest rates ranging from 6% to 13%, luring a large number of people to invest. According to the court ruling, the platform raised as much as NT$8,344,393,326 from June 29, 2016, to May 2 last year.

Court Ruling: Responsible Party Tseng Yao-feng and Co-defendants

The Taipei District Court sentenced Tseng Yao-feng to sixteen years and six months in prison for violating the Banking Act and money laundering, while his girlfriend, Chang Shu-fen, received a twelve-year and two-month sentence, with a confiscation of NT$7,125,350,000 in illegal gains. In the same case, former Executive Yuan advisor Chen Chen-chun was sentenced to one year in prison for assisting Tseng in evading assets, with a four-year probation; Jinlong Technology Co., Ltd. was fined NT$100 million, and the other twenty-seven defendants, including Tseng's father Tseng Ming-hsiang, received sentences ranging from one to eight years in prison, with seven salespeople receiving suspended sentences. All defendants have the right to appeal.

Tseng Yao-feng and Chang Shu-fen remain in custody. Tseng was already wanted on four warrants, including a firearms case pending execution, prior to his arrest. The judge refused Tseng's bail and declined to change his status from a detainee to a prisoner to prevent him from fleeing. Chen Chen-chung posted NT$1.5 million bail during the trial but received an eight-year sentence, requiring an additional NT$2 million for bail, with restrictions on residence and travel.

im.B Platform Scam: Fake Real Estate Debt Claims

Tseng Yao-feng, using the alias "Tseng Guo-wei," founded a real estate debt matching platform in 2016, later setting up the im.B lending mutual benefit platform website, claiming to provide P2P online lending platform services. However, since 2019, in order to continue raising funds, Tseng and Chang Shu-fen re-listed or split already paid real estate debt cases into multiple debts, even using fraudulent debts to attract further investment.

Illegal Fundraising: Illegal Operating Model

The panel of judges determined that Jinlong Technology Co., Ltd. operated in a manner of "using later funds to pay off earlier funds," where the interest paid to investors actually came from other investors' principal, constituting illegal fundraising. The promised investment returns by Tseng Yao-feng and others were several times higher than the interest rates of legal financial institutions, with returns clearly disproportionate to the principal, resulting in a significant amount of illegal fundraising.

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