China’s upstart Luckin Coffee grew at a blinding pace. It opened stores faster than Starbucks, doubled its valuation to $12bn eight months after going public and pleased its big-name investors in the US.To get more news about luckin coffee delisted, you can visit shine news official website.

Then, on 2 April, Luckin said many of its sales had been faked.

The shock brought a screeching stop to the three-year-old juggernaut, sending its stock plunging 75% overnight. Since then, investigators have delved into the books, executives have lost jobs and a stock exchange has moved to delist Luckin, but no one has explained just what went on inside the onetime corporate rocket ship.

It turns out that Luckin sold vouchers redeemable for tens of millions of cups of coffee to companies that had ties to Luckin’s chairman and controlling shareholder, Charles Lu, according to internal documents and public records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Their purchases helped the company book sharply higher revenue than its coffee shops produced.

Meanwhile, other internal documents showed a procurement employee called Lynn Liang processing more than $140m of payments for raw materials such as juice, delivery and human resources services. Liang was fictitious, according to people familiar with Luckin’s business.

The scale and audacity of deception, which the Journal found traced back to before Luckin’s initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Market just a year ago, have stunned international investors and confounded regulators. This was a company that went from founding to public listing in less than two years. Its sudden fall saddled pension, mutual and hedge funds, not to mention individual investors, with heavy losses both in Asia and the West.

Luckin on 11 May ousted its chief executive, Jenny Qian, and chief operating officer, Jian Liu, but provided little detail. It suspended or put on leave six others.

Qian couldn’t be reached for comment. Liu hung up when reached by phone. The only one of the other six who provided a comment said he was just following orders.

Lu didn’t respond to questions from the Journal. On 20 May, he said in a public statement: “My style may have been too aggressive and the company may have grown too fast, which has led to many problems. But I by no means set out to deceive investors.” He also apologised and restated his faith in the company in the statement, issued after Nasdaq moved to delist Luckin’s shares, a decision Luckin said it would appeal.

Luckin said in response to questions from the Journal that a committee of its board is continuing an internal investigation and responding to inquiries from regulatory agencies in the US and China. It said it couldn’t comment on specific details relating to the probe at this time.

“The company continues to take appropriate measures to improve its internal controls and remains focused on growing the business under the leadership of its board and current senior management team,” Luckin said.

Nasdaq, although seeking to delist Luckin, last month permitted its American depositary shares to resume trading after a six-week suspension. They promptly resumed their drop. The shares closed on Wednesday, 27 May at $2.59, versus a brief high above $50 in January.