Thousands protest over China ant aphrodisiac scheme
(Reuters)
21 November 2007
khaleejtimes.com
BEIJING - Thousands of residents in northeast China took to the streets and surrounded government offices this week to demand help getting money back from a bizarre scheme to raise ants to make an aphrodisiac.
Hundreds of anti-riot troops and police in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, were deployed to stop protesters approaching the provincial government and Communist Party headquarters, residents said on Wednesday.
The angry investors from across Liaoning -- a rustbelt province struggling to attract investment -- have demonstrated in Shenyang since Monday and sporadic clashes with police have broken out, they said.
Several thousand protesters were seen outside the provincial government on Wednesday morning, a witness told Reuters by telephone.
The investors -- many of them laid-off workers or farmers -- put their savings into Shenyang’s Yilishen Group for a scheme in which they raised ants to provide ingredients for a tonic promising an aphrodisiac boost.
For every 10,000 yuan ($1,350) they paid the company as ”deposit”, investors were promised a dividend of 3,250 yuan.
Chinese media have said the scheme collected more than 10 billion yuan from hundreds of thousands of Liaoning residents.
Some local media have said the ants were a useless ruse for an illegal fund-raising scam, but the group has survived several probes in the past eight years and investors had previously received their dividends on time, protesters said.
A Shenyang resident told Reuters that about 1,000 people stood in front of the Yilishen Group’s head office on Wednesday. Repeated calls to the office went unanswered.
Investors said the group’s good relations with the government and its commercials starring two of China’s best-known comedians on state television convinced them Yilisheng was legitimate.
“It has been out there for eight years and the government has given the company and the manager so many honours. We thought there mustn’t be any problem,” investor Li Dechun told Reuters.
He said he had poured more than 200,000 yuan into the scheme.
But since October, the group has delayed payment of dividends twice, fuelling fears among investors that it was on the brink bankruptcy or its funds might have been frozen by the government.
“We strongly demand the government offer a way out for Yilishen!” read a banner the protesters held as they marched through a Shenyang street, a photo of which was posted on Internet and blog sites.
A spokesman for the Liaoning provincial government said officials had been talking to the protesters and the failure to deliver dividends was not due to any government action.
“Most of the investors are from the lower class of society. Some have threatened to take more radical actions, such as blocking trains at the railway station,” a local resident surnamed Cong told Reuters.
Online reports and discussions about the protests and the Yilishen scheme were largely censored by the government.
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