In April this year, Wang Qi contacted Tong Changfeng again. "He said the project funds were not turning over smoothly and he borrowed 2 million yuan from me." Wang Qi did not have that much money, so after discussing with his family, he managed to gather 500,000 yuan and lent it to Tong Changfeng because "if I didn't lend, he might not give me work." On April 26, Tong Changfeng issued a promissory note for 500,000 yuan to Wang Qi. However, there was still no news about when the hydropower project would start.
Months passed, and the other party had still not informed Wang Qi of entering the site for construction. Wang Qi kept calling to ask Tong Changfeng. Tong always said the project was about to start, but some certificates were still missing.
Yesterday morning, the reporter came to the fourth floor of Dikuang Building on Tuni Road in Hefei. As soon as the elevator opened, the nameplate of Huayi Company could be seen. Only a few rooms on the entire fourth floor were open, but the people inside claimed they were the pile foundation engineering department of another company, unrelated to Huayi Company.
Yesterday afternoon, the reporter repeatedly dialed the mobile phone number of Tong Changfeng provided by the creditor, but each time it prompted "temporarily unable to connect." The creditors said that according to their understanding, Tong Changfeng held 50% of the shares in Huayi Company, while another couple, Wang Mou and Bao Mou, held the other 50%. They also tried contacting Wang Mou by phone, but the other side said the money was borrowed by Tong Changfeng, unrelated to them. The reporter also attempted multiple times to contact Wang Mou using the number provided by the creditor, but the calls went unanswered. The reporter also sent text messages, but as of the deadline, there was no response.
Last year in the beginning of the year, Wang Qi met Tong Changfeng through a friend. One day, passing by the intersection of Changjiang West Road and Tianzhu Road in Hefei, Tong Changfeng pointed to a construction site east of the intersection and said it was his "Glory Plaza" project.
A developer general manager in Hefei owed a huge amount of money and disappeared for more than three months. On the afternoon of August 18, this shocking post appeared online. The reporter quickly contacted the poster, who in reality was a Hefei citizen named Wang Qi (pseudonym). He said the person mentioned in the post was Tong Changfeng, the chairman of Hua Yi Real Estate Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huayi Company"). Unable to find Tong Changfeng, Wang Qi said he could not recover his 700,000 yuan in engineering deposit and loans, and claimed that according to preliminary statistics, Tong had involved 1.2 billion yuan in funds and suspected that Tong had absconded with the money.
At the end of the corridor, the glass door of a meeting room was open, where creditors said they used to discuss matters with Tong Changfeng here. Now, the table in the meeting room was messy with a few scraps of paper, and the sofa was covered with dust. Next to the sofa, an office was tightly locked, which creditors said was originally Tong Changfeng's office.
The police have started investigating.
Mr. Cao also met Tong Changfeng last spring, and Mr. Cao transferred 6 million yuan into Huayi Company's account in December last year.
After several discussions, Wang Qi obtained the water and electricity installation project for two buildings of the "Glory Plaza" project. On February 3 last year, both parties signed an engineering and labor responsibility contracting agreement. The甲方was the "Anhui Branch Company of Zhongdi Glory Plaza Project Department," and the乙方was Wang Qi personally. The agreement detailed specific projects for water and electricity, the 200,000 yuan deposit, and the method of settlement of the project funds, stipulating that the agreement would take effect upon receipt of the deposit.
On the same day the agreement was signed, Wang Qi transferred 200,000 yuan as a deposit into Tong Changfeng's account. On February 8 of the same year, Huayi Company issued a receipt.
Another creditor, Ms. Chen, said she also met Tong Changfeng through a friend. At that time, Tong borrowed money from her at a monthly interest rate of 3%. "I invested all 1.4 million yuan, and I also brought classmates and friends in, borrowing a total of 4 million yuan to Tong Changfeng."
The creditors said that when they joined, Huayi Company mainly introduced three projects to them: the "Glory Plaza" project on Changjiang West Road in Hefei; the "Happiness Street" project in Guohe Town, Lujian County; and the pure villa project "Tongtai・Heyuan" developed by Huayi Company-controlled Tongtai Company in Chizhou City. However, they did not conduct detailed on-site inspections, only viewing the promotional materials for these three projects posted inside the company.
The description of the "Glory Plaza" project address was "the intersection of Changjiang West Road and Tianzhu Road in Hefei." After investigation, the reporter found that currently under development at the intersection of Changjiang West Road and Tianzhu Road is a residential project developed by Jin Hao (Hefei) Construction Development Co., Ltd. A staff member of Jin Hao's project department told the reporter that they did not know about the "Glory Plaza" project, and Huayi Company had no relation to them. Yesterday afternoon, a responsible person from Jin Hao telephoned the reporter, reiterating that they had no connection whatsoever with Huayi Company.
In July this year, Wang Qi contacted Tong Changfeng again, and Tong said the project would start by the end of the month. However, by the end of the month, Tong Changfeng's phone began going unanswered, and later became unreachable. Wang Qi went to Huayi Company's office on the fourth floor of Dikuang Building on Tuni Road in Hefei and found many creditors gathered there. Wang Qi said: "Many people had lent him money, ranging from millions to tens of millions, with the largest reportedly reaching hundreds of millions." Wang Qi introduced that at the time, Huayi Company's financial personnel were still registering the debt amounts and said they could repay the money. Hearing that the money could be recovered, many people did not pay too much attention. But by the end of August this year, more people realized something was wrong.