Master of Success Yang Taoming Sentenced to Life Imprisonment

The Disillusionment of the "Master of Success":

The Collapse of Yang Taoming's Fraud Empire

In June 2025, a ruling from the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang pinned Yang Taoming (real name Yang Wucheng), who self-styled himself as "Asia's No. 1 Potential Motivation Master," to the pillar of shame for fraud—life imprisonment and the confiscation of all his assets.

This “master” who once claimed to sell a strand of hair for 60,000 yuan and a blank sheet of paper for 40,000 yuan wove a “success” scam involving 380 million yuan over ten years, and the defendant's appeal is once again bringing the details of this absurd farce into the public eye.

Carefully Packaged “Altar”

With only a high school education, Yang Wucheng crafted a legendary persona through a fabricated “reverse legend”: becoming a “national-level lecturer” at 25, helping 600 companies “double their performance” at 26, and “starting from scratch to buy a Rolls-Royce” at 28. His team created tailored promotional videos: private jets, selfies with global celebrities, “sharing the stage” with world-class master Anthony Robbins… These illusions, built through video editing and rhetoric, became bait to attract students. Victim Cong Yan recalled, “The music was deafening in the venue, the applause was thunderous, he appeared like a star, and everyone went crazy pulling out their money.”

Interconnected “Harvesting Chain”

Yang Taoming's fraud empire was meticulously divided:

Layered Brainwashing: The 680 yuan “lead generation course” was just the beginning, with subsequent courses like “Fire Conference” and “CEO Class” skyrocketing to tens of thousands of yuan. Tutoring teachers worked overnight to “close deals,” using phrases like “if you don’t invest now, your life is over” to pressure students into maxing out their credit cards.

Fake Cases: The so-called student cases of “turning a monthly salary of 5,000 into an annual salary of 3 million” and “giving a wife a 3.1 million luxury house” were actually carefully designed scams by the team. Core member Wang Jinxiang confessed that his Mercedes was purchased with borrowed money, the luxury house was burdened with a 2 million yuan mortgage, and bragging on stage was just to recruit more people for commissions.

Mental Manipulation: Students were required to walk barefoot over 600℃ charcoal fire to “ignite potential,” spend 46,000 yuan on a cloth doll to “receive cosmic energy,” and even borrow 300,000 yuan on the spot for “apprenticeship.” An undercover informant revealed, “The core of the three-day course is only one sentence— the more money you spend, the faster you succeed.”