?The tragedy of a job-seeking college student

This tragedy once again shows that there are weaknesses and blind spots in my country’s legislation and law enforcement in combating pyramid schemes.

57-year-old Wu Ruixiang wanted to shed tears when he saw Ji Pengcheng lying on the kang. 39 days ago, as a lawyer, he met this young man. From then on, he came into contact with something that he had paid little attention to before - MLM.

Ji Pengcheng, 23, is a college student and will graduate in July 2008. In order to find a job, he traveled around. Currently, he is lying at home in Beidamiao Village, Wudan Town, Wengniute Banner, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, unable to take care of himself. The cause of the change in his life was pyramid schemes.

Wengniute Banner in Chifeng City is a national-level poverty-stricken county (banner) with agriculture and animal husbandry as its main economy, with an annual per capita income of about 700 yuan (RMB). As a child from a poor family in a poor area, Ji Pengcheng studied at the Yangtze Engineering Vocational and Technical College in Hubei Province, attracting the envy of some people.

Ji Pengcheng recalled that as a 2008 graduate majoring in water conservancy and hydropower construction engineering, when he was about to graduate, he, like other classmates, worked hard to recommend himself to employers. "Being born in a rural area, I am well aware of the hardships of my parents. In order for me to go to school, they worked early and late, doing farm work and doing part-time jobs day and night. Seeing my parents getting more and more gray hair and bending their waists more and more, I felt sad in my heart. I couldn't bear it anymore and wanted to use my own hands to share some of the pressure of life with them," Ji Pengcheng said.

At this time, he saw on the Internet "China Railway Third Engineering Bureau is recruiting surveyors for expressway projects" (purely a scam and has nothing to do with China Railway Third Engineering Bureau - reporter's note). At that time, Ji Pengcheng thought that this kind of field work would have a poor environment, difficult conditions, and little competition. Besides, China Railway No. 3 Bureau was a state-owned enterprise, so it was suitable for the major he studied. To this end, he contacted a person who called himself "Manager Lu" based on the phone number published online. According to the other party's instructions, he decided to go to Heze City, Shandong Province for the interview.

On the morning of November 26, 2007, Ji Pengcheng asked his head teacher, Mr. Zhang, for a week's leave. On November 27, he took a train from Wuhan to Heze. At around 5 o'clock that night, he arrived in Heze and got in touch with "Manager Lu." The other party said that someone would pick up the station shortly. At about 7 p.m., a young man in his 20s took Ji Pengcheng to a store and asked him to buy luggage. Ji Pengcheng recalled that he was tired due to motion sickness and wanted to "have a good rest before meeting the manager", so he chose a cheaper guest house to stay. The young man who picked him up then left.

Early the next morning, Ji Pengcheng contacted "Manager Lu". The other party said that they were building a highway, which was far away from their residence. The company would send a car to take them there. They would have lunch at the construction site at noon and the company would send a car to pick them up in the evening. Therefore, they could only meet in the evening when they returned from the construction site. At the same time, Ji Pengcheng was told that they passed by the "Triangle Garden" at night and asked him to wait there.

At around 6 pm on November 28, Ji Pengcheng arrived near the "Triangle Garden" and waited for the interview. At around 7:30 p.m., two young men called his name, checked his ID card, and said he was "sent by Manager Lu" and took him to his residence.

Ji Pengcheng recalled that along the way, they talked about the engineering situation, and the other party said that they were "driving excavators," so Ji Pengcheng "didn't feel anything unusual."

I bought my luggage and walked into the third floor of a small building. As soon as he entered the house, Ji Pengcheng began to "feel something wrong." It was a two-bedroom unit with one living room. Intuitively, the people in the house "didn't look like engineers at all," and there were no instruments. Ji Pengcheng recalled that after entering the house, he was asked to put down his luggage and put on slippers, and then was pushed into a room by several people. Inside, there were seven or eight people shaking hands with Ji Pengcheng one by one. At that time, Ji Pengcheng realized that he might have been deceived and entered a pyramid scheme, or at least a "criminal gang."

After a while, someone in the room asked Jipengcheng to play cards, but he did not agree. At this time, he wanted to contact his classmates through his mobile phone. But as soon as he left the room, someone asked him to "borrow his cell phone." Ji Pengcheng realized that "they wanted to cut off his contact with the outside world," so he refused. Afterwards, five or six people surrounded him and remained in a stalemate for more than 20 minutes. A young man wearing black leather clothes and a buzzcut grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to another room. At the same time, several people started beating him. "I had no choice but to give them my phone," Ji Pengcheng said.

After that, Ji Pengcheng asked people around him: "When will you go to the construction site?" One person told him, don't worry, there will definitely be a meeting tomorrow. As soon as he heard about the "meeting", Ji Pengcheng strengthened his judgment that he had fallen into a pyramid scheme.

In the past, I have heard of some behaviors of MLM organizations. At that time, he had only one idea: make up his mind and run away. However, the door has been locked, and the windows have iron bars, except for the kitchen and bathroom. At this time, a young man told him to "be honest and follow the arrangements" and refused his request to return the phone.

Ji Pengcheng chose to escape from the bathroom. Moreover, the door latch of the bathroom had been taken away. The window was only about 40 centimeters long and had a screen. He briefly glanced outside the building. At this time, the sound of him tearing down the window screen alerted the people who were watching him, and they broke in through the door.

Ji Pengcheng thought, "I can't wait any longer," so he climbed up the window and jumped off the building.

Regarding the subsequent scene, Ji Pengcheng said, "I don't remember anything."

After calling the police, Ji Pengcheng was rushed to Heze Third People's Hospital. On December 3, 2007, the diagnosis certificate issued by the hospital stated: Ji Pengcheng, male, 23 years old, was diagnosed by the hospital on November 29, 2007 with comminuted fracture of his left hand, joint dislocation, lumbar fracture, and vertebral body compression. fractures, bilateral lung contusions, and bilateral pleural effusion. Recommendation: Hospitalization.

Shi Jing, deputy captain of the Criminal Police Brigade of the Mudan Branch of the Heze City Public Security Bureau, said that this was an incident of online recruitment to defraud college students into entering a pyramid scheme. After receiving the report, the police captured four suspects from the room where Ji Pengcheng jumped from the building. The four suspects suspected of illegal detention are all around 20 years old. Three are from Henan and one is from Inner Mongolia. They have all just graduated from school. Currently, this case is still in the investigation and prosecution stages.

Ji Pengcheng's situation has touched the hearts of many people.