When I read about the case of Tai Kang’s top sales champion, Ren Xiaomin, a chill ran down my spine.

She wasn’t deceiving people in secret; she was at the Tai Kang Qingdao branch office, openly borrowing money in front of the so-called financial director, holding a stamped guarantee letter and a collection letter.
Ren Xiaomin, 38, is Tai Kang Life’s national sales champion—she’s piled up awards and honors, and the chairman personally presents trophies; the company has always put her in the center position (C position). Yet this “money-printing” star agent, behind the scenes, carried out a Ponzi scheme involving about three to four hundred million yuan.
Most unsettling of all is her confidence in her con: the victims signed agreements right in the company’s office, with the company’s official seal and staff lined up to support her—an entire package of compliant-looking setup. Many people handed over their money, not because they believed in her personally, but because of the halo that Tai Kang had hand-crafted for her and that official seal.
Now that things have come to light, the company wants to distance itself by saying it was just a personal act. But are the official seal and the documents authentic? Has management backed her publicly? Do those posters and trophies count as the strongest form of advertising? A hole of over 300 million yuan has smashed the half-lifetime savings of how many families.
No matter who is in charge of the official seal, and no matter where the risk control went when the company cultivated a star—these questions need to be clarified; otherwise, the next Ren Xiaomin will appear sooner or later.
In the end, who should bear the blame for this?