On July 10, 2022, China witnessed a rare event – large-scale protests. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of people showed up outside Zhengzhou People’s Bank in Zhengzhou, Henan province’s capital, to protest against banking fraud.
A number of small banks in Henan have frozen the deposits of hundreds of thousands of people and gone AWOL. Anxious people, worried about their life’s savings, came down heavily on a provincial branch of the Chinese central bank demanding their money be returned.
THE COMPLETE STORY
• A few months ago, a number of small banks, mostly in Henan province, froze the deposits of several of their customers and stopped the withdrawal of money. The banks cited maintenance work at the time for the frozen funds. Websites also showed that it is under maintenance.
• But after two months, when the problem was not resolved, people started getting worried. Since then, the banks have gone AWOL with billions of yuan of depositors’ money.
• Protests similar to the recent one were attempted earlier and one protest was held in May, but authorities had dispersed the crowds. Reports even revealed that authorities used Covid trackers to prevent victims of the banking scam from going out of their homes and protesting. Some protestors who reached the protest site in June told International media that their health status turned red, automatically forcing them into quarantine….
