Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder and once the richest business leader in China, has been living in central Tokyo for almost six months, amid Beijing’s continuing crackdown on the country’s technology sector and its most powerful businessmen.

Ma’s months-long stay in Japan with his family has included stints in hot spring and ski resorts in the countryside outside Tokyo and regular trips to the US and Israel, according to people with direct knowledge of his whereabouts.

Ma has largely disappeared from public view since he criticised Chinese regulators two years ago, accusing the state banks of having a “pawnshop mentality” and calling for bold new players that could extend credit to the collateral poor.

Since then, both companies he founded, Ant and ecommerce group Alibaba, have faced a series of regulatory obstacles. Chinese regulators called off Ant’s blockbuster $37bn initial public offering and fined Alibaba a record $2.8bn for antitrust abuses last year.