Taking advantage of the convenience of work, the man committed credit card fraud and then cashed out and transferred the stolen money... On January 11, a reporter from the Shanxi Evening News learned from the Taiyuan Municipal People's Procuratorate that the court had recently handled the first case of "self-money laundering" in Taiyuan, and the criminal suspect Wu Mou had been approved for arrest for suspected credit card fraud and money laundering.
In March 2021, Wu Mou, a man in his 20s, joined a hotel in Taiyuan. In order to facilitate his work, yue Mou, the person in charge of the hotel, provided Wu with a mobile phone and informed him of the WeChat payment password bound to the credit card on the mobile phone. In July of that year, Wu stole Yue's bank credit card through the online cash-out platform without authorization, and transferred more than 30,000 yuan of cashed out money to his account through the platform. After the incident, the public security organs submitted the suspect Wu Mou to the Taiyuan Municipal Procuratorate for approval of arrest on suspicion of credit card fraud.
"After Wu committed credit card fraud, he also cashed out and transferred the stolen money, which was suspected of 'self-laundering'." After the incident, after combing through the evidence of the case, the procurator believed that Wu's behavior constituted the crime of money laundering.
Subsequently, the Taiyuan Municipal People's Procuratorate held a joint meeting of procurators to collectively study and discuss Wu's involvement in the crime. After communicating with the investigating organs many times and soliciting the opinions of the Anti-Money Laundering Center of the Taiyuan Central Branch of the Chinese Min bank, the procuratorial organs have targeted the outline of the supplementary investigation of fixing and strengthening the evidence related to money laundering crimes.
In the end, after synthesizing the opinions of many parties and carefully studying, it was held that the criminal suspect Wu Mou fraudulently used other people's credit cards to defraud property, the amount was large, and his behavior constituted the crime of credit card fraud; through the online credit card cash-out platform, he transferred the proceeds of credit card fraud to his personal account, and according to the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment (ELEVEN) implemented on March 1, 2021, his behavior constituted a crime of "self-money laundering". The Taiyuan Municipal People's Procuratorate approved Wu's arrest for credit card fraud and money laundering.
It is reported that this case is the first case of "self-money laundering" in Taiyuan City after the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment (Eleventh) Amendment.
What is "self-laundering"?
In layman's terms, "self-laundering" refers to the act of the perpetrator "laundering" the proceeds of crime and its proceeds after committing the predicate crime to legalize it. For example, Zhang San drug trafficked 10 million yuan in stolen money, and then laundered the proceeds of crime by investing the 10 million yuan. The previous Criminal Law did not criminalize the act of "self-laundering" separately, but was absorbed by the upstream act as an adjunct to the predicate crime, and was only considered as a sentencing circumstance, and the punishment was generally mild, resulting in a large amount of stolen money being unclear, which in essence violated the principle of unity of criminal responsibility and punishment, and the intensity of the crackdown on crime was insufficient. In fact, the purpose of self-money laundering is to "launder" the stolen funds, has independent subjective elements, modes of conduct and their harmful consequences, does not belong to the category of non-punishment after the fact, infringes on legal interests different from the upstream acts, and should be independently criminalized.
Shanxi Evening News reporter combed the relevant information and found that article 14 of the Criminal Law Amendment (ELEVEN), which came into effect on March 1, 2021, stipulates that article 191 of the Criminal Law is amended to: to cover up and conceal drug crimes and triads
Whoever commits any of the following acts, including organized crime, terrorist activity crime, smuggling crime, embezzlement and bribery crime, crime of undermining the order of financial management, or the source and nature of the proceeds of financial fraud and the proceeds thereof, shall confiscate the proceeds of the commission of the above crime and the proceeds thereof and shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and shall also be fined or fined alone;
(1) Providing fund accounts;
(2) Converting property into cash, financial instruments, or negotiable securities;
(3) Transferring funds through transfer or other payment and settlement methods;
(4) Cross-border transfer of assets;
(5) Using other methods to conceal or conceal the source and nature of the proceeds of crime and their proceeds.
Where a unit commits the crime mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it shall be fined, and the persons who are directly in charge and other persons who are directly responsible for the crime shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Compared with the previous articles, it is found that in the newly revised articles, the "knowingly is" of "knowingly being a drug crime..." has been deleted, as long as the money laundering is carried out for the purpose of concealing and concealing seven types of crimes such as drugs, it constitutes a crime. The original intention of the legislation is to eliminate the difficulty of proof of the previous money laundering crime on the knowledge of the facts, reduce the standard of proof of the money laundering crime, fully prevent and combat money laundering crimes, and effectively maintain the order of national financial management. At the same time, the original clause "(3) by transfer or other payment and settlement methods" was amended to "(3) funds are transferred by transfer or other payment and settlement methods", and the clause of "(4) cross-border transfer of assets" is added to adapt to the current more flexible payment environment.
Written by: Shanxi Evening News all-media reporter Xin Ge
Source: Shanxi Evening News
![Beijing's first "self-laundering" case was sentenced, and the man was sentenced to 16 years in prison for covering up drug funds[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)