Ethiopian boss in Yiwu vanished after 800k RMB goods order, unpaid balances. Company owner fled; vendors should verify credit before shipping.
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In Yiwu: Foreign Boss Disappears After Sourcing 800k RMB in Goods and Leaving Balances Unpaid
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It would be the nightmare every market vendor in Yiwu dreads, and it just happened again. If you are doing business here, you know how fast things move in our bustling markets, but sometimes, they move fast for all the wrong reasons.
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Recently, the local Economic Crime Investigation warning platform dropped a case about a company operating in Yiwu, and the details look less like bad business and a lot more like a carefully planned disappearing act.
The company in question is Yiwu Sita Import & Export Co., Ltd., which was located at Jiangdong Street. It all started back in August 2025, when an Ethiopian national named Abdi Mohamed Esmael officially registered the business. By November, the local police department actually paid the office a routine visit to check in and register their details. At that time, everything seemed to be moving along; the company had already sourced over 800,000 RMB worth of goods from local vendors.
But here is where the story takes a dark turn. While that massive chunk of inventory was successfully ordered and shipped, a large amount of the final balance payments was left completely unpaid.
When officials recently went back to the office to investigate complaints, they walked into an empty room. The office had been completely cleaned out, the owner had already fled the country, and surprise, surprise, repeated phone calls to his number went completely unanswered.
Local trade insiders are calling this a textbook, premeditated scam rather than a typical business failure. Because of how quickly the trap was sprung, the local warning platform is urging everyone to take immediate action. If you have pending orders with new companies but haven't delivered the goods yet, you need to pause, thoroughly check their credit, and re-evaluate whether they can actually pay you. For those who already shipped their goods to Sita Import & Export and are holding empty promises, the advice is to track where your cargo went immediately and start looking into legal channels to salvage what you can before the trail goes completely cold.
Source: 义乌市公安局经侦大队
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