Illegal fundraising wanes as crackdown efforts bear fruit

The number of illegal fundraising cases and the amount of money involved has dropped noticeably since 2017, as China stepped up its crackdown on such activities.

Statistics from the interagency task force leading the crackdown on illegal fundraising practices show that in the first three months of this year, 1,037 illegal fundraising cases occurred nationwide, and the number declined by 16.5 percent year-on-year. During the same period, the amount of money involved with these cases fell 42.3 percent year-on-year to 26.9 billion yuan ($3.95 billion).

The decrease followed the same trend in 2017 when the number of illegal fundraising cases during the year fell 2.8 percent year-on-year to 5,052, and the amount of money involved dropped by 28.5 percent to 179.55 billion yuan.