[6] Xia added he planned to invest in or buy football clubs in India, Spain, the US, and Australia to create a new 'sports sector' within his portfolio.
[8] On 19 March 2020, Xia announced that the Recon Group had focused attention to their Healthcare and Bioscience division, which was producing and exporting COVID-19 testing kits, hand sanitizer, ventilators, thermometers and PPE to countries around the world that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 5 June 2018, Aston Villa missed the deadline for a £4 million tax bill, and the club was faced with a winding up order and the real possibility of going out of business.
[16] On 9 August 2019, documents from Companies House revealed that Recon Group's minority share ownership had been bought out, and Xia no longer had any stake in the club.
[19] Xia reportedly spent 6 months in several detention centres in China between July 2020 and January 2021, after being formally arrested on suspicion of harming the interests of a Shenzhen-listed manufacturing company.
[20] A 2021 investigation by Al Jazeera into alleged money laundering in English football claimed that Xia's ownership of Aston Villa may have been part of this.
[22][23] Following this investigation, former colleague Keith Wyness cast doubt on whether Xia was as wealthy as he had claimed, stating "Not a lot was known about him that could be independently verified.
My concern was that for a supposed billionaire with a string of companies, Mr Xia appeared not to have a grasp of basic financial modelling.