52 Singaporeans held in China since July over suspected pyramid scheme

Chinese authorities have detained 52 Singaporeans in Guangxi over suspected pyramid scheme activities, Singapore's foreign ministry and police said on Sept. 4. CNA, which first reported the case, said the group is believed to be the largest number of Singaporeans arrested and detained overseas at any one time.Singapore did not say when the operation took place. Three sources told CNA that those held had been in detention since at least the middle of July.Chinese police must ask prosecutors to approve a formal arrest within three days of detaining a suspect. That window extends to 30 days for people accused of offending across multiple locations, repeatedly or as part of a group, after which prosecutors have seven days to rule.Evidence gathering after that point typically runs two to seven months, The Straits Times reported, followed by a prosecutorial review that can add a month or more before a case reaches court.The foreign ministry said it has been engaging Chinese authorities through Singapore's embassy in Beijing and its consulate-general in Guangzhou. Consular officers have visited all 52 detainees, and the ministry is in contact with their next of kin.The police force has contacted its Chinese counterparts to seek more information, according to the joint statement, which said investigations remain ongoing.Pyramid crackdownGuangxi is the birthplace of the "1040 Sunshine Project," a decades-old operation also run as the "Beibu Gulf Development Project" and the "Nanning investment scam," which The Straits Times traced through Chinese court judgments and accounts of past cases.Recruits are typically drawn in by friends or relatives, or under false pretenses involving tourism, a high-paying job or a romance, the paper reported. They pay an entry fee, frequently 69,800 yuan (US$10,300), for shares in a fictitious state-backed venture, and are promised an eventual payout of up to 10.4 million yuan, the figure behind the scheme's name.Participants are told the arrangement is secret and exclusive, the paper found, and are often housed in rented flats where they are cut off from outside contact and lectured on getting rich.China investigated more than 200,000 pyramid scheme and direct selling cases between 2021 and 2025, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation, which said in November 2025 that it would continue to clamp down.Revisions to public security laws passed in June 2025 and effective from January 2026 allow police to fine and briefly detain rank-and-file participants who previously escaped criminal prosecution. Police in Xi'an arrested 130 people across more than 180 locations in June 2026.