Qianbao.com: A 100-Billion-Yuan Ponzi Scheme Disguised as Watching Ads for High Salaries

Who Gets Targeted

The victims are predominantly middle-aged and elderly individuals, low-income populations, and netizens lacking financial literacy, including retired workers, homemakers, and migrant workers. Generally eager to earn extra income during their spare time, they lack the risk awareness required to identify the pitfalls of promotions that claim 'pay a small deposit to receive high daily wages.' A major psychological vulnerability for many is their blind trust in 'platform endorsements' and 'early profit-maker examples.' Seeing people around them successfully withdraw funds, they follow suit blindly, sometimes even borrowing money to increase their investment. When the capital chain breaks and the platform halts withdrawals, they often struggle to accept the losses and refuse to acknowledge the true nature of the scam until public security authorities intervene.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Operating under the entity 'Nanjing Qianbao Information Media Co., Ltd.', the platform marketed itself as an e-commerce and advertising distribution platform. Users only needed to register and pay a deposit to undertake advertising tasks posted on the platform, such as watching videos, filling out questionnaires, and forwarding links. The platform's pitch emphasized 'simple tasks, flexible hours, and lucrative returns,' misleading users into believing this was legitimate internet labor compensation.
• Step 2: The platform promised daily returns far exceeding market levels, with annualized rates generally exceeding 20%, and some promotional pitches even boasting 'earn 40% a day by watching ads.' To build credibility, the platform initially allowed users to make small withdrawals, creating the illusion that wages were genuinely being paid out. These successful withdrawal cases were deliberately screenshot and shared widely, further attracting new users to pay deposits.
• Step 3: The platform designed a multi-tier referral reward system where older users received commissions for inviting new users to top up, with higher rewards for deeper tiers. This essentially used funds from new users' deposits to pay out returns to older users, forming a classic 'rolling over old debt with new money' capital chain. By controlling the capital pool, the platform operators transferred massive amounts of funds into personal accounts for luxury consumption and personal investments.
• Step 4: To sustain the Ponzi scheme, the platform continuously introduced 'limited-time tasks' and 'double-reward tasks,' inducing users to increase their investments or extend their lock-in periods. At the same time, it set withdrawal barriers, such as requiring the completion of more advertising volume or the referral of more friends, resulting in extremely low actually withdrawable quotas for users, with the bulk of their principal locked long-term within the platform.
• Step 5: When the growth rate of new users slowed down and capital inflows were no longer sufficient to cover existing returns, the platform began delaying withdrawals and experiencing system failures, ultimately suffering a complete collapse of its capital chain at the end of 2017. Controller Zhang Xiaolei turned himself in, but the platform had already absorbed over 50 billion yuan in funds, involving over 200 million registered users and more than one million actual victims, marking China's first 100-billion-yuan-scale illegal internet fundraising case.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promising fixed and abnormally high rates of return, with annualized rates exceeding 20% or even 'earning 40% daily,' far beyond normal financial products and labor compensation levels.
• 🚩 Returns do not come from actual business profits; instead, users are required to pay a deposit upfront and told that 'tasks must be completed before withdrawal,' pointing to clear capital pool operations.
• 🚩 Employing multi-tier referral rewards, encouraging the recruitment of downlines and promising commission rebates, exhibiting characteristics of pyramid schemes.
• 🚩 Lacking financial institution qualifications while openly absorbing funds from the general public without approval from regulatory authorities such as the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
• 🚩 Early withdrawals proceed smoothly, but are subsequently followed by frequent system delays, withdrawal failures, or arbitrary reductions in single withdrawal amounts.

真实案例

• On December 26, 2017, Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, voluntarily turned himself in to the Nanjing Public Security Bureau. According to public reports, the platform had over 200 million registered users, illegally absorbed a total of over 50 billion yuan in funds, and left 1.75 million people completely ruined. Judicial authorities subsequently determined its operational model to be a Ponzi scheme, and Zhang Xiaolei was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of fundraising fraud.
• On June 21, 2019, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province delivered its first-instance judgment on the 'Qianbao network' illegal fundraising case. Prime culprit Zhang Xiaolei was convicted of fundraising fraud, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprived of political rights for life, and ordered to have all personal property confiscated. The court trial ascertained that he illegally raised funds from the general public by fabricating advertising task returns, and used the funds for personal squandering and expenses on his mistresses, with reports claiming he once gave a mistress 20,000 yuan in pocket money daily.
• Between July 2025 and August 2026, multiple media outlets successively published in-depth retrospective reports on the Qianbao.com case, disclosing facts such as early financial media raising doubts as early as 2014, multiple lawyers publicly warning of suspected illegal fundraising in 2015, and public security authorities across various regions issuing risk warnings in 2016. Despite this, a large number of users continued to invest under the temptation of '2% daily returns' until the capital chain broke.
• In July 2018, the Jiangbei New Area Branch of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau transferred Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, to the procuratorial authorities for review and prosecution on suspicion of fundraising fraud. Investigation by economic crime police revealed that Qianbao.com's cumulative illegal fundraising total exceeded 100 billion yuan, with over 30 billion yuan of participants' principal remaining unfulfilled. (Source: [https://finance.sina.cn/money/lczx/2018-07-30/detail-ihfxsxzh2687681.d.html](https://finance.sina.cn/money/lczx/2018-07-30/detail-ihfxsxzh2687681.d.html))
• In January 2023, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province initiated information registration and verification for victims and fundraising participants of the 'Qianbao network' cases, using official announcements to urge affected participants to complete registration and verification promptly to avoid affecting case fund liquidation. The cumulative illegal fundraising total of this case exceeded 100 billion yuan, with over 30 billion yuan of participants' principal remaining unfulfilled. (Source: [https://finance.sina.cn/2023-02-01/detail-imyeevkn6856897.d.html](https://finance.sina.cn/2023-02-01/detail-imyeevkn6856897.d.html))

Official Stance

• In 2016, public security authorities across multiple regions issued risk warnings through official channels, pointing out that Qianbao.com was absorbing funds under the guise of 'watching ads to make money,' suspected of illegal fundraising, and reminding the public to stay away.
• On December 27, 2017, the Nanjing Public Security Bureau officially reported that Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao.com, voluntarily turned himself in due to suspected illegal fundraising crimes. The police have officially filed a case for investigation and frozen related assets.
• On June 21, 2019, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court of Jiangsu Province officially released the first-instance sentencing results, confirming that Zhang Xiaolei constituted the crime of fundraising fraud and clarifying that the platform's operational model was a Ponzi scheme, warning the society against the illegality of such high-yield fund-absorbing behaviors.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ For any project claiming 'pay a small deposit to receive high daily salaries,' verify whether the operator holds financial licenses or consumer finance qualifications by checking the official website of the National Financial Regulatory Administration.
• ✅ Maintain high vigilance toward online platform projects offering annualized returns exceeding 10% without risk warnings, keeping in mind the common sense that 'ultra-high returns are inevitably accompanied by extremely high risks,' and do not covet small gains.
• ✅ Once abnormal delays in withdrawals, frequent system maintenance, or loss of contact with customer service are discovered on a platform, immediately stop investing, preserve evidence such as bank transfer records and chat screenshots, and promptly report the matter to the economic crime investigation department of the local public security organs.
• ✅ Proactively study typical cases of illegal fundraising, pay attention to official anti-fraud warnings, avoid blindly trusting recommendations from friends and family, and especially remind elderly family members not to invest their retirement savings into such 'task rebate' platforms.