CELEB | Vicki Zhao apparently did something worse than tax evasion

Beijing — As each day goes by, the mystery around Vicki Zhao Wei’s apparent blacklist by the Chinese government goes more unsettling.

There has been conflicting reports about the whereabouts of the 45-year-old actress-director.

Is Vicki at her French vineyard with her husband, or is she with her parents in Beijing? People are also curious to know the location of her 11-year-old daughter. All these have led netizens to get more curious about what Vicki did to upset the Chinese government this way.

This incident has led netizens to compare Vicki’s disappearance to Fan Bingbing’s, back in 2018. After being accused of tax evasion, Bingbing was missing for months. It was speculated that she had either flown to the US to seek asylum or was jailed and tortured by the Chinese government.

Eventually, it was revealed that the actress had been under residential surveillance in Jiangsu, as reported by 8days.sg.

What makes Vicki’s case even more unsettling is that no charges have been brought against her yet. Based on an insider, her case is so serious that the government is keeping mum about it until they have finished their investigations.

The insider hinted that the case is “something worse than tax evasion” and that it’s “related to her close ties with Alibaba’s Jack Ma”.

What is it about her relationship with Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Alibaba Group, who ran afoul of the Chinese government following his criticism of China’s financial and banking systems?

Vicki and her husband Huang Youlong reportedly paid HK$3.1bil (SGD536mil) in 2014 to become the second-largest shareholder of Alibaba Pictures Group. They were said to have made over HK$2.2bil (SGD380mil) by selling a small portion of their shares.

The following year, the couple partnered with Ma on a private equity deal and husband and wife were said to have cashed out immediately after share prices went up 150 per cent in a single month.

Vicki also reportedly bought HK$600mil (SGD103mil) of shares in Alibaba’s financial service subsidiary, Ant Group, just last year, and she would have made a fortune had Ant gone public.

The insider seems to suggest that Vicki is being investigated for possible insider trading and market manipulation, both of which are serious crimes in China. /TISG