Four years after the case first emerged, the initial verdict for the "Snow Pine case" has been delivered. The company's actual controller, Zhang Jin, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Snow Pine Holdings has been fined 1.6 billion yuan, while its actual controller receives a life sentence. According to reports, on February 10, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court announced publicly that Snow Pine Holdings was heavily fined 1.1 billion yuan. Zhang Jin was sentenced to life imprisonment, with all his personal assets confiscated.

Seven other senior executives received prison sentences ranging from three and a half years to 15 years. They were also ordered to return their illegal gains and pay individual fines between 150,000 and 1.1 million yuan.

Sources present at the hearing revealed that the charges included fundraising fraud, illegal absorption of public deposits, breach of trust in handling entrusted property, and obstruction of testimony. Among these, the maximum sentence for illegal deposit-taking is typically over ten years, while fundraising fraud can lead to a life sentence.

Unsurprisingly, Zhang Jin only admitted to illegal deposit-taking in court, vehemently denying the fundraising fraud charge. He claimed his intention was "only to grow the enterprise, with no deliberate fraud."

The court saw it differently. Snow Pine was already insolvent, yet it fabricated assets and forged contracts to raise vast sums of money, clearly demonstrating an intent for illegal possession—the definition of fraud.

Beyond top management, six sales staff who sold the financial products were also sentenced on the same day, each receiving over three years in prison. The highest amount of illegal gains ordered to be recovered from one individual reached 1.5 million yuan.

Following the verdict, ST Xuefa, a listed company connected to the case, immediately issued an announcement stating it had not yet received formal court documents and that the final outcome would be based on the official judgment.

Zhang Jin's Snow Pine Holding Group has long been a peculiar presence in Guangzhou. In 2016, its headquarters were located not in Huangpu District, but on the 62nd floor of the Guangzhou International Finance Centre in the city's Zhujiang New Town CBD. When weather was poor, the top of the tower was often shrouded in clouds, mirroring the opaque and mysterious image the company projected to the outside world.

This seemingly enigmatic company gave off a distinctly unusual vibe. An individual who had interacted with Zhang Jin described him as extremely narcissistic, meticulously dressed with refined makeup, including eyeliner applied in a style reminiscent of Vance. In reality, he stood under 1.7 meters tall, regularly wore height-increasing insoles, and had coarse skin, yet all publicly released photos were heavily retouched to present a radiant image, requiring his personal approval before publication.

His office featured several full-length mirrors for admiring his posture, and his desk was covered with personal portraits, magazine cover features, and internal company publications primarily glorifying his strategic vision, accompanied by various artistic photos of him in suits, mostly taken in a studio.

Another individual interviewed by Zhang Jin years ago noted that during the interview, Zhang was all smiles and exuded a gentle, successful businessman demeanor. Zhang explained to him that finance was essentially about maturity transformation—using future money today. Satisfied with the candidate, Zhang immediately offered an annual salary of 8 million yuan, far exceeding industry standards, which came as a shock. The candidate ultimately declined, reasoning that the abnormally high salary and Snow Pine Trust's sales commissions, significantly above all other trust companies in Zhujiang New Town, were major red flags indicative of a Ponzi scheme.

While Zhujiang New Town is home to many financial professionals, few could decipher Snow Pine's business model. The company's operations appeared diversified, involving real estate, property management, cultural tourism, and commodities, yet each segment was relatively small and unremarkable, with commodity trading commissions being exceptionally low. Despite this, the company expanded rapidly, with revenue soaring dramatically, suddenly emerging as a Fortune Global 500 company—a strategy few understood.

Public information shows that in 2018, Snow Pine Holdings first entered the Fortune Global 500 with revenue of $32.7 billion, ranking 361st. It subsequently remained on the list for three consecutive years. Zhang Jin also claimed the title of "Guangzhou's richest person" in 2020 with a fortune of 42 billion yuan.

In hindsight, public intuition can be frighteningly accurate. Reports indicate that starting in 2018, Snow Pine began密集 issuing 1,490 wealth management products through local financial asset exchanges, later launching over 350 trust products via Snow Pine Trust. These products, masquerading under the guise of "state-owned enterprise backing" and "high-quality accounts receivable," promised annualized returns of up to 12%, luring in investors and raising approximately 59.6 billion yuan in total.

But what about the so-called "underlying assets"? They were almost entirely fabricated. Zhang Jin and his associates established over 60 related companies, forging contracts and privately carving seals to create non-existent business activities and receivables.

By the Spring Festival of 2022, this scheme of "using new funds to repay old debts" collapsed, leading to a full-blown crisis for the wealth management products. At the time the case was exposed, nearly 20 billion yuan belonging to approximately 6,800 investors remained unpaid.

The massive sums obtained through fraud were likely squandered by Zhang Jin. Prosecutors revealed that 8.4 billion yuan from Snow Pine's funds constituted a slush fund under Zhang's control, used for purchasing gold, artwork, and a private jet. He also transferred at least two sums overseas via underground banks—one around 2 million Swiss francs and another approximately 11 million USD—for purchasing property in the United States.

With the first-instance verdict delivered, this nationwide case has reached a temporary legal conclusion. However, for the nearly 6,800 victims, the wounds are far from healed. Disclosures during the trial indicated that based on the liquidation value of Snow Pine's remaining assets, the recovery rate for investors might be only around 3%, meaning the vast majority will see their life savings lost forever.

The candidate who once turned down the exorbitant salary offer now feels a sense of relief, believing that had he accepted, he might well have become one of the sentenced executives.

The exposure of the Snow Pine case represents not just the collapse of a business empire but a profound warning for financial markets and investors. It reaffirms the principle that high returns come with high risks. For any wealth management product offering an annualized return significantly above the 10-year government bond yield, investors must be prepared for potential losses. Every gift from fate has its price, clearly marked in advance.