World's Biggest Ponzi Scheme Blows Up

China's biggest Ponzi scheme to date has blown up.

Quartz: Nearly one million investors may have been fleeced in China’s latest Ponzi scheme

Twenty one executives from China’s largest peer-to-peer money lending platform have been arrested, on suspicion of fleecing investors of 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion).

Police allege that the senior management of Ezubao stole that much from 900,000 investors nationwide, which would make it China’s largest-ever case of investor fraud, by both cash value and the number of victims. By number of victims, it would be the largest Ponzi scheme in the world.

...Ezubao promised annual returns of between 9% and 14.6%. But as many as 95% of the projects listed on the company’s website (now inaccessible) were made up, according to a confession from Yong Lei, the company’s risk controller, Xinhua said. Instead, the company used new cash to repay old customers.