By Paul Gable
Dan Liu, owner of Founders Group International, which includes 21 golf courses and other properties in the Grand Strand area, was a participant in the recent One Flight Myrtle Beach Classic pro-am golf tournament. It was surprising to see Liu among the participants considering his questionable immigration status in the United States.
Some background:
Jane Zheng was a native Chinese working as a realtor with a local company in Horry County. Her niche market was other Chinese nationals with seemingly excess cash to invest in U.S. properties.
Zheng connected with Dan Liu, reportedly a managing partner in Yiqian Funding, a peer to peer lending company in China. Yiqian Funding (also known in China as “Easy Richness”} raised money from Chinese investors that was, theoretically, lent to businesses or other entrepreneurs or invested independently. Investors and the company supposedly made money on the interest paid on the loans and on the rise in investment assets.
Over an approximate 18 month period, Zheng brokered the sale of 22 local golf courses and other development properties to, supposedly, three Chinese corporations for whom Liu maintained 90 percent ownership and was the exclusive U.S. representative.
While not being licensed to do business in South Carolina, according to records of the S.C. Secretary of State Office, the three corporations supposedly formed at least 17 LLCs locally, again with Liu holding 90% ownership, each LLC holding ohe or more of the various golf course and development property assets. The LLC’s primarily conducted business locally under the umbrella name Founders Group International.
Everything looked great. Local owners got rid of golf course properties that had become toxic to them. Liu was playing the big money man locally and his partner in Yiqian Funding, Xiuli Xue, was bringing potential investors to Horry County to see investment opportunities.
Former Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes, former Myrtle Beach Chamber CEO Brad Dean and, later, Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus were attending conferences in China to promote tourism and investment opportunities in the Grand Strand. Chinese money was going to fuel the next wave of tourism and economic development, or so we were told.
In early 2016, then County Chairman Mark Lazarus and Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes took an 18 day trip to China, including a visit to Yiqian Funding headquarters in Nanjing, to promote tourism and development. They came back claiming a $100 million investment in a Chinese Cultural Center and Theme Park would soon be announced with Chinese investors footing the bill.
Then, it all began to fall apart. The Chinese investors were delayed visiting the local area due to ‘visa problems.’ They never came.
Word began leaking from China that approximately $1.2 billion was missing from Yiqian Funding accounts and payments due investors were not being made. By early 2017, Chinese government officials were raiding Yiqian Funding offices and arrest warrants were issued by the Nanjing Prosecutor’s Office for Liu, Xue and other officials of the three corporations originally holding the Founders Group International assets. The Nanjing Prosecutor’s Office called the operation a Ponzi Scheme.
Liu, acting as exclusive agent for the Chinese corporations and as 90% owner of Founders Group International, established mortgages against all of the FGI properties and had the mortgages assigned to himself, personally, in a series of what can only be described as questionable transactions registered in Horry County.
Xiu and 11 other company officials went to trial for an “illegal fundraising case” designated as a “Series of Yiqian Events.” by the Nanjing District Attorney for Jiangsu Province in China. They are currently serving 15-year prison sentences.
According to evidence and testimony at the criminal trial, Liu, Xiuli Xue and Xiang Fei established a peer to peer financing business called Yiqian Funding in 2010. The business split into two divisions, Nanjing Yiqian and Jiangsu Yiqian, in 2013. Xue was in charge of Nanjing Yiqian, which was the fundraising half of Yiqian Funding. Liu was the managing partner of the entire operation and also managed Jiangsu Yiqian, which, supposedly, invested the funds raised by Xue’s division.
According to evidence and testimony in the Xue criminal trial, Liu transferred overseas a large amount of funds from Jiangsu Yiqian in 2014-15 in violation of Chinese law – the missing $1.2 billion. This was the exact timeframe during which Liu was purchasing the golf courses and other properties along the Grand Strand.
Liu originally resided in the U. S. with a work visa. However, that visa expired in August 2018, according to records. Liu’s Chinese passport is also expired according to Chinese records. It is known that, after establishing residency in the U. S. and as things were falling apart in China, Liu obtained a passport from the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu under what is known as a fast track “citizenship by investment” program, which allowed foreign nationals to obtain Vanuatu citizenship and passports for an investment of approximately $130,000. However, there are no records of Liu ever having obtained a visa to the U. S. with the Vanuatu passport.
While Liu’s 12 co-conspirators sit in Chinese jails and approximately 92,000 Chinese citizens remain bilked out of their savings, Liu remains free and moving around in the U. S. with the missing $1.2 billion, either in cash or in purchased assets such as the golf courses, at his disposal.
The transfer of stolen funds out of China which were used to purchase assets in the U. S. certainly appears to be money laundering occurring within U. S. borders. Money laundering is a felony punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment under U. S. law.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that, on several occasions since 2016, after the Yiqian Funding scandal broke, the background and whereabouts of Liu have been reported to the FBI and ICE.
One must question why ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal agencies allow Liu to remain free and unhindered while these agencies, allegedly, vigorously seek to deport illegal immigrants especially those with criminal connections?
Why haven’t state officials such as Gov. Henry McMaster and/or Attorney General Alan Wilson requested the federal agencies to investigate the Liu case? The details have been public knowledge since 2016.
Even Vanuatu has taken steps recently to stop criminals from using its fast-track passport process. Recently, the Times of India reported Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat ordered the cancellation of the passport of Lalit Modi who is accused of financial fraud in India. Napat cancelled Modi’s passport stating the businessman sought Vanuatu citizenship “to evade law enforcement agencies.”
Since 2017 to the present day, it must be concluded that for reasons unknown – ICE remains cold on the Liu case.
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