China Business Uncovered Podcast: Inside Italy’s Chinese Underground Banking Rings

For more than a decade, Italian authorities have been trying to shut down Chinese underground banking networks moving billions of euros across borders. But they keep coming back.

One recent investigation centers on Yang Lifeng, a businessman from Wenzhou in East China’s Zhejiang province who rose to become an influential leader in northern Italy’s Chinese business community. Prosecutors allege that his network used shell companies and fake invoices to move 32 million euros ($37.3 million) through accounts across Europe and into the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.