China’s Rich Entrust Total Strangers to Sneak Cash Out of the Country

Imagine trusting your life savings to a group of strangers you know only via WhatsApp. Some affluent Chinese people are willing to make that gamble to get part of their wealth out of the mainland. Take 32-year-old Phoebe, who recently moved almost a million yuan ($137,000). To do it, she first had to transfer her money into the account of a local facilitator. Then, Phoebe, who requested to be identified by only her first name because of privacy and legal concerns, had to sit tight.

A few tense hours later, transactions began to pop piecemeal into a separate account she holds in Hong Kong. While the city has been stripped of many of the political freedoms it used to enjoy, it still occupies a unique place in China’s financial ecosystem as the only area with unfettered access to global capital markets. Once cash is there, it can go anywhere.