[2][3] In 1999, Wang Fengyou, a Liaoning businessman, set up the Yilishen Tianxi Group to make health products whose main ingredients were ants, including a version of Viagra.

[4] Buyers, most of whom were unemployed factory workers or peasants, were instructed to feed the ants sugar water, egg yolk and cake, with the promise that after three months, they could sell them back to the company.

[1] The company was endorsed by Chinese government officials, and Wang, now the chief executive, was photographed with the former Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, Bo Xilai.

[2] In addition, Wang had made donations totalling $1.4 million to charity and to the 2008 Summer Olympics, to pay for infrastructure such as a subway system in Liaoyang which had boosted the company's public image.

[3][4] Lindsey Hilsum, a British correspondent for Channel 4 News, reported investors were too frightened to show their faces on camera; several were briefly arrested after she interviewed them, and others had been beaten by police for protesting.