One million bilked in Chinese ant farming scheme
These ants were far more than uninvited picnic guests, [investors] were told. When ground into a powder, they become an aphrodisiac, a kidney purifier and general cure-all, the Yilishen Tianxi Group declared. The ants would earn them a 30% annual return.LinkIn reality, critics say, the ants apparently were little more than the bait for a vast pyramid scheme. Over an eight-year period, the company recruited as many as 1 million would-be ant farmers, collecting about $1.2 billion. In mid-December, it filed for bankruptcy.
...
The company hired as its spokesman Zhao Benshan, a famous comedian and actor who specializes in playing a hick. He has since dropped out of sight.
The boxes at the heart of the ant farming business are made of cardboard with a 2-inch-square plastic window and a small feeding hole framed so badly with duct tape that they look like the work of a careless teenager with a box cutter.
In return for their money, ant farmers were given the boxes, ants and a list of strict instructions: The ants need a spritz of water mixed with white sugar or honey at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day. They should be fed cake and egg yolks every three to five days. And they should be kept indoors.
In return, the company would come and pick up dead dried ants every 74 days. Under no circumstances were the ant farmers to open their boxes and look inside, they were told, to ensure that the special Yilishen ants weren't mixed with inferior ants.
UPDATE: The chairman of the company has been sentenced to death.
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And yet all I could think of was this ...
http://wondermark.com/d/102.html
So are there ants in the boxes?
I'm going to say no.
If so then they need to release them into government buildings
". . . close ties to the Chinese government"
Maybe it's really just the government trying to institute a new "stupidity tax."
Are the ants cookie-scented?
The stupidity tax, by any other name is the Lotto. There's a sucker born every day. Not even education protects people from a good con, which can be illustrated nicely with the entire dot-com insanity, and now our best and brightest MBA's have gone off and morgaged the future on bad loans. Do you remember the dotcom-crazy-times? Vegas thrives on people eager to burn their money.
It's so sad how many people are still uneducated and without critical thought.
Chinese medicine, many medicine, does have some pretty weird stuff that works, but you gotta still know /why/. One should always be skeptical of 'cure-alls', how for example, shall something have the property to both cure one of high AND low pressure, etc.
One should also be especially skeptical and cautious about cures for a problem that could have many causes, such as sexual impotency or lack of interest. The most revered doctor of Ancient China gave two patients with similar symptoms very different cures, because after observing them he note that the causes for their illnesses was different.
I sincerely hope those laughing at these poor people for being so easily deceived are themselves entirely comfortable with who they voted for last election.
@#7:
Yes, Takuan, I am entirely comfortable.
And still laughing.
But now not laughing entirely at them.
How is it a pyramid scheme?
I expected #1 to link this one: http://wondermark.com/d/355.html
It sucks for all one million of these people, but seriously - 30% growth on dead ants? How obvious can a scam get? Don't these people have the internet?
Oh, right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6365123.stm
actually, it looks like another kind of scam rather than pure pyramid
Greetings
This tells you all you need to know about the scam:
"...Instead of siding with Yilishen's victims -- mostly poor farmers, construction workers and the unemployed -- the government has blocked Internet postings and ordered reporters off the story, ant farmers say. Attorneys in the nation's capital have been discouraged from representing any of them, according to the website of the Beijing Municipal Lawyers Assn.
Most of the victims say they invested with Yilishen because of its close ties with the government and endorsements by prominent officials. Company officials frequently appeared with senior government officials. The company advertised extensively on state television and received a hard-to-get marketing permit...."
With the explicit and implicit endorsement of the GOV even dead ants can be sold...
Or a war with Iraq or a speedboat attack by Iran!?!
We just got a slightly different box of dead ants shoved up our ass by OUR Gov ;)
Enjoy the journey
WarLord
Only a million??!!?? I'd say that is a failure, unless of course you're an ant, ...or a communist. Now if they were to try the same scam on body crabs....the sky is the limit, or maybe the itch is the limit. Something like that. Farm yourselves people! You look like you're already raising a good crop.
#11 -- in that link it sez the bad guy is getting THE DEATH SENTENCE. Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky and Neil Bush are making mental notes right now to not spread their special brand of financial magic in China ...
My first post!
I(t's not a pyramid, but rather a Ponzi scheme. A new English word for the Chinese to learn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme#What_is_and_is_not_a_Ponzi_scheme
Link to a blog entry with great commentary;
Thursday, December 20, 2007 1:01 AM by will
Why the Yilishen ant farming scandal was the perfect China story
http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2007/12/20/why-the-yilishen-sex-tonic-ant-farming-scandal-is-pure-china-gold.aspx
"You simply could not make it up. Ten Hollywood screenwriters locked in a closet with a kilo of blow, a brick of twenty dollar bills, your sister and a cigar-smoking chimpanzee in boxer shorts wouldn't come up with this. Even if they weren't on strike. Only China comes up with this..."
The guy sentenced to death (Wang Zhendong) was last February, and it was a different guy. The L.A. Times article references it, saying it was a different guy in the same province. The guy in the L.A. Times article was Wang Fengyou. Of course, he might get the death penalty, too, but it's not yet been reported.
...How do they execute him? Why covering him with honey and burying him in an ant mound, natch!
Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes are essentially the same thing. Charles Ponzi who originally invented the scheme (or is credited with the idea) DID make some money at first, but his "business" model was flawed, and it needed constant intake of money to stay afloat. A PURE pyramid scheme would have none of the initial returns that Ponzi had, just promises-- the income from one "investor" is used to pay off another, thus building good PR to lure more "investors."
Is this really that much different from the bizarre scams that Americans regularly fall for?
http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Telemarketing/Outbound/Major/Investments/wacky.htm
From the USA,
"12/25/03 - Hundreds of people, including several Connecticut residents, have lost money to an Oklahoma promoter of worm farms, he said. B&B Worm Farms of Meeker, Okla., promises in ads to supply initial worms and supplies, then to buy back worms produced by contract farmers and sell them to gardening firms and nurseries. At first the company pays for the worms, but eventually the company resells the worms to new contract farmers, rather than reselling them for a profit."