Snowbird Holdings Founder Zhang Jing Gets Life Sentence in Landmark Fraud Case
Zhang Jing, the founder and actual controller of Snowbird Holdings — once a Fortune Global 500 company and hailed as “Guangzhou’s No. 1 Private Enterprise” — has been sentenced to life imprisonment after a Chinese court upheld the verdict in the second and final trial, marking the culmination of one of the country’s largest corporate financial fraud cases.
On June 26, the Guangdong Provincial Higher People’s Court issued a final ruling upholding the original life sentence handed down by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in February, according to an announcement by Snowbird Development Co., Ltd., as reported by The Paper. Zhang was convicted of fundraising fraud, illegal absorption of public deposits, breach of trust in managing entrusted property, and obstruction of evidence.
The Rise and Fall of a Fortune 500 Empire
Zhang Jing’s story began in 1997 when he founded Junhua Group, the predecessor of Snowbird Holdings, starting with real estate development. Born in Guangzhou in 1971, Zhang studied finance at Shenzhen University and later earned a graduate degree from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. At age 18, he began investing in the stock market with 600,000 yuan provided by his family, building his initial capital.
The company’s trajectory accelerated dramatically after 2015, when Junhua Group was restructured into Snowbird Holdings. According to an in-depth analysis by Li Cai Weekly, the company’s revenue surged from 593 billion yuan in 2015 to 1.57 trillion yuan in 2016, making it Guangzhou’s top private enterprise. By 2018, Snowbird had entered the Fortune Global 500 at rank 361, and Zhang Jing became “Guangzhou’s Richest Man” with a personal fortune of 62.5 billion yuan.
The Supply Chain Finance Fraud Scheme
Beginning around January 2020, Snowbird Holdings launched a massive illegal fundraising operation disguised as “supply chain finance.” The scheme involved creating fake accounts receivable as underlying assets and issuing over 350 illegal wealth management products through various exchanges, including gold exchanges, property exchanges, and unlicensed pseudo-exchanges.
As Observer Network reported, the scheme relied on a network of 63 affiliated companies, including fake state-owned enterprises with fabricated contracts and forged seals. Snowbird Trust’s “Changqing” series alone raised 11.918 billion yuan through 42 trust plans, all backed by entirely fictitious assets.
Court investigations revealed that approximately 596 billion yuan was raised in total, with about 200 billion yuan remaining unpaid at the time of collapse. Nearly 8,000 investors were affected, and the estimated recovery rate stands at approximately 3%.
Personal Misappropriation and Collapse
The investigation uncovered that 8.4 billion yuan was controlled by Zhang Jing for personal use. Funds were spent on purchasing gold, antiques, luxury goods, domestic and overseas real estate, a private jet, and transfers overseas — including 2 million Swiss francs and 11 million USD sent to Switzerland for US property purchases via underground banks.
The cracks first appeared in 2021 when multiple Snowbird wealth management products began defaulting. On January 30, 2022, Zhang Jing issued a public apology letter admitting inability to repay investors. In May 2023, Guangzhou police formally filed a case against Snowbird subsidiaries for illegal absorption of public deposits, and Zhang was taken under criminal coercive measures.
Corporate Penalties and Wider Sentencing
Beyond Zhang’s life sentence, Snowbird Holdings was fined 1.1 billion yuan. Eighteen other senior executives received prison terms ranging from 5 to 14 years, while six Snowbird financial advisors were sentenced to 3 to 4 years. The listed entity, ST Xuefa (002485.SZ), in which Zhang indirectly held 69.4% of shares — most now pledged and judicially frozen — has sought to distance itself from the scandal.
In an official announcement, Snowbird Company stated that Zhang “does not hold any position in the company” and that the ruling “will not have a material adverse impact on the company’s daily operations.”
Implications for China’s Financial System
The Snowbird case has exposed significant regulatory gaps in China’s financial oversight. Various gold exchanges, property exchanges, and unlicensed pseudo-exchanges served as conduits for the illegal fundraising. The case has also highlighted the need for stricter verification of underlying assets in supply chain finance products and raised questions about trustee responsibilities in China’s trust industry.
As Observer Network noted in its analysis, “The capital market’s development has never been without the bottom-line thinking of respecting the market, the rule of law, and risk. The fall of Snowbird Holdings serves as a warning to all market entities: capital operations that detach from the real economy and cross legal red lines will ultimately lead to a dead end.”
What’s Next
With the final verdict delivered, attention now turns to asset recovery and investor compensation. The estimated 3% recovery rate means devastating losses for the nearly 8,000 victims. Questions also remain about the fate of ST Xuefa, given that the majority of its shares remain frozen, and whether further investigations will target the financial institutions and exchanges that facilitated the scheme.
The case follows a pattern of major Chinese financial fraud cases — such as e租宝, Zhongjin Xi, and Xiaoniu Capital — where founders received life sentences for billion-yuan schemes, reflecting Beijing’s ongoing campaign to clean up the financial system and deter future misconduct.