Chinese pawnbroker held for USD 130 million fraud

Head of a Chinese pawn brokerage firm has been arrested for illegally raising hundreds of millions of yuan in south China's Hainan Province, local officials said today.
Shen Guilin, also the former deputy chairman of Hainan Federation of Industry and Commerce, raised about 800 million yuan (USD 132.24 million) from more than 200 people from February 2010 onwards, promising them high monthly interest from two to three per cent, said the Haikou Public Security Bureau.
He used the money for investments or personal expenditure, and soon it became impossible for him to pay it back.
In December last year, he fled via Hong Kong to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

He has confessed to illegally collecting public funds, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.