Police said the suspect was explicitly mentioned in his words
To give middle-aged and elderly people "buckle disease" and "under the crisis"
The former refers to when they talk about where they are uncomfortable
Let's just say they're missing a certain nutrient
The latter refers to the exaggeration of the condition
They develop a sense of fear, which in turn will buy more of their products
Han Hongying (pseudonym), a 64-year-old resident of Huainan City, Anhui Province, still can't believe that she has insisted on taking high-priced health products for more than half a year despite her family's opposition, and it is just cheap candy that can not play any therapeutic role in her disease.
Recently, the Huainan police successfully smashed a fraud criminal gang that sold fake health care products, arrested 26 suspects, froze the funds involved in the case for more than 200 million yuan, assets of more than 20 million yuan, and seized 38 kilograms of gold bars. Previously, the gang taught so-called "health classes" almost every day in the form of live webcasts, "brainwashing" the audience, and then peddling the "health care products" they developed in the WeChat group.
They say these products can prevent and alleviate symptoms such as high blood pressure, high blood lipids and joint pain in the elderly. Many people are convinced of these products and rush to buy them.
The Network Security Brigade of the Tianjia'an Branch of the Huainan Municipal Public Security Bureau displayed some of the false health care products seized. These so-called "health products" are actually ordinary candies produced by food processing plants, and they are sold to people over the age of 50. Photo/ Reporter Zhou Qunfeng
On July 9, Li Jie, deputy head of the cybersecurity protection brigade of the Tianjia'an Branch of the Huainan Municipal Public Security Bureau, told China News Weekly that the gang specifically targeted middle-aged and elderly people over the age of 50 to cheat and developed targeted "talking skills" for this group. Agents have opened more than 600 physical stores across the country, covering more than 20 provinces, and more than 260,000 middle-aged and elderly people have joined their WeChat group.
These so-called health care products, which are often hundreds of yuan, are essentially ordinary candies, and the cheapest factory price is only a few yuan per kilogram, and the highest is not more than 20 yuan. After investigation and interrogation, the police found that the main suspect can be described as "one false to the end", they have invented titles such as "academician" and "person in charge of stem cell therapy" for themselves, and fabricated the efficacy of the product, and even some suspects even have false names.
"Those entering the group must be over 50 years old"
One day in late October 2021, Han Hongying, who has retired for many years, went to Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, with a tour group. During the small talk on the way, an old man who was traveling with him said that on a network live broadcast platform, he could see professional "lecturers" teaching health classes almost every day, "'lecturers' are academicians with medical professional backgrounds, and people over 50 years old can watch live broadcasts for free, and they can also answer questions and receive red envelopes."
After hearing these introductions, Han Hongying took into account his pain, pelvic fractures, carotid arteries and plaques, and moved his heart. Subsequently, she was pulled into a WeChat group called "Scientific Law Training Class". The group has more than 200 members, and the group members call the group leader Ge Moumou "big boss". Ge Moumou told the group members that only those over 50 years old can be pulled into the group.
After entering the group, Han Hongying quickly joined the army of lecturers. Before the live broadcast starts, the group members can enter the live broadcast room after entering their personal mobile phone number and the "house number" sent by the "big boss" on a live broadcast platform called "Weizan".
According to the above operation, Han Hongying entered and found that there were two lecturers (Yin xxx and Feng xx) taking turns to give lectures during the live broadcast. Most of the lectures start around 8 p.m., and occasionally live broadcast at a certain time in the morning, each time lasting about 1 hour, almost once a day.
According to the relevant introduction, Yin xxx and Feng xx are medical experts, Yin xxx graduated from a well-known university in Beijing with a clinical major in traditional Chinese medicine, is an academician of a beijing institution" and "the person in charge of stem cell therapy", has more than 20 years of clinical experience in medicine, and has in-depth research on bone diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and cancer.
The live broadcast screen during the lecture shows that there are often some eye-catching trophies, certificates, etc. behind the "lecturer". Taking into account the visual condition of middle-aged and elderly people, when the "lecturer" lectured, he also deliberately wrote some important "knowledge points" to the A4 paper, and the words were also written very large, in order to be more eye-catching, the title was also deliberately bolded in red. For example, during a lecture, Yin Moumou wrote several large red characters of "performance of weak heart" directly above the paper, and then wrote 6 manifestations such as palpitations, irritability and irritability below.
In order to allow middle-aged and elderly people to "consolidate knowledge points", "lecturers" also require the audience to take notes every time when listening to lectures. Because of her old age, poor health, and long-term failure to write, Han Hongying's hands trembled when she wrote notes, but she still insisted on making a good record.
Each time the "lecturer" broadcasts live, he will also ask two questions for the audience to answer. A screenshot of a live video that Han Hongying provided to China News Weekly showed one of the titles: Which of the following ingredients can clean up liver toxins? And listed four options: A, collagen; B, P40 detoxification protein; C. Lactoferrotransin; D. Casein.
Han Hongying said that if the group members answer correctly, they can also get red envelope encouragement. Each red envelope is generally a few cents. After the middle-aged and elderly people understand these health knowledge, the "lecturer" began to display "health care products containing the above ingredients" for the middle-aged and elderly people with related diseases to buy. Yin Moumou also said that his own parents and in-laws are also eating these health care products, and the effect is good.
Li Jie said that the criminal suspect let the middle-aged and elderly people answer questions in the group to receive red envelopes, which has a strong purpose. These topics are basically centered on nutrients, such as asking what benefits probiotics and vitamins are for the human body. After the middle-aged and elderly people received the red envelope, their enthusiasm for answering the question was improved, and the suspect then launched the so-called health care products to induce them to buy.
Many interviewees said that Yin Moumou sometimes introduced some of the Chinese medicine prescriptions he prescribed when he was still live broadcasting, "He said that the average patient will be cured with up to 5 servings, so he is called 'Yin 5 services' in the medical community", "Everyone has mastered the knowledge points they say in the early stage, and they feel that they are experts, so they have purchased the health care products they recommend, and some people will grab medicines according to the prescriptions he prescribes."
Han Hongying told China News Weekly that after her family learned about watching the live broadcast and buying such products, they all expressed their opposition and advised her not to be deceived, but she trusted the "lecturer" more. Coupled with the fact that going to the hospital is very troublesome, a test takes a lot of time, especially during the epidemic period, it is more inconvenient to go to the hospital, so she insists on buying these health care products.
Because her carotid arteries once had plaques, Han Hongying once spent 1396 yuan to buy 40 boxes of snow lotus snow peptides at a time. She said that in order to make the middle-aged and elderly people feel the greatest benefit, the "lecturer" encouraged everyone to buy a "golden partner" (referring to the purchase of multiple different products at once).
Under the inducement of the "lecturer", Han Hongying successively bought more than a dozen products such as "needle blue fruit VC tablets" and compound probiotic freeze-dried powder. She said that after each time she decided to buy, she first handed over 10 yuan to the "big boss" in the WeChat group as a deposit, and after the goods arrived at the service station (referring to the physical store), they could pick it up themselves, or they could deliver it to the door, and then give the money to the "big boss".
The police revealed that among the victims of the case, an elderly man from Shaanxi spent a total of more than 60,000 yuan to buy almost all the products sold by the suspects, and some of the products were purchased many times.
Han Hongying said that after listening to the class, if there is a problem, it can be reflected to the "big treasurer", and then feedback to the "lecturer". Some group members have questioned why after taking it for a while, they feel that their symptoms have not been relieved. The "lecturer" replied that the effect will not be immediate, and it is necessary to insist on eating to see the effect, and do not give up halfway.
On May 27 this year, Han Hongying watched the day's live broadcast and finished taking notes for the day. Since then, the "lecturer" has not been online for several days. What she didn't know was that on May 30, all the suspects had been arrested.
Many victims, including Han Hongying, said they were surprised to hear that they had been arrested, and "now I suddenly realized that my family's advice was correct." One victim said that she had a physical examination a few days ago, and from the physical examination report, she saw that after taking these health care products, "there was no effect."
The main suspects are all "billionaires"
Before the arrest, the police had made sufficient preparations for the preliminary investigation of the suspect. The police handling the case first obtained the corresponding clues from the network channel, and after having the clues pointed, they began to explore and visit the field.
In mid-May, the police handling the case visited Qianfeng Village in Tianjia'an District, Huainan City, and found a physical store selling health care products, which was located on the first floor of an old-fashioned residential building, which was very inconspicuous from the outside.
Li Jie said that the physical store did not even have a façade and signboard, so it attracted the attention of the police and suspected that there may be a problem with the products sold inside. The police found that the so-called "health products" sold inside did not have the health food logo commonly known as "blue hat" on the packaging box.
Blue hat sign (Blue hat sign) is a special sign for health food in mainland China, which is sky blue and is in the shape of a hat, commonly known as "blue hat" in the industry, also known as "little blue hat". Blue Hat products are health food labels approved by the State Food and Drug Administration.
Xu Yang, a police officer handling the case, said that after verification, these products are some foods without any approval marks, and they do not have any health care effects or medicinal value. Further investigation by the police found that the person in charge of this store, Li Mou, was the agent of these products in Huainan. He opened a total of 4 physical stores in Huainan City (2 in Tianjia'an District, 1 each in Xiejiaji District and Fengtai County).
With the deepening of the investigation, the police found that behind the physical store was a "large company", which was registered in a city in Shandong, and the core members of the company were Yin and Zhang. They have developed more than 200 agents across the country. Huainan agent Li also recruited 8 people to build 8 WeChat groups, pulling local middle-aged and elderly people into the group, and these group owners are called "big treasurers". Like Han Hongying, there are more than 260,000 middle-aged and elderly people who have joined the WeChat group nationwide.
On May 23, after fixing a large amount of evidence, the Huainan police determined that this was a criminal gang specializing in defrauding middle-aged and elderly people of money, and immediately set up a special team to fully investigate. Earlier, the network security brigade of the Tianjia'an Branch of the Huainan City Public Security Bureau, which found clues in the case and collected evidence, made a special report to the Municipal Bureau. Because the brigade had investigative functions, the sub-bureau decided that the brigade would be primarily responsible for investigating and handling the case.
On May 30, the Huainan Municipal Public Security Bureau unified supervision and coordination, the Tianjia'an Branch Bureau was responsible for the command, network security, criminal investigation, public security, economic investigation and other police joint operations, dispatched more than 40 police forces to the company's Huainan agents and the headquarters of a fraud gang in a city in Shandong Province to carry out network collection operations. With the strong cooperation of the Shandong police, a total of 26 criminal suspects were arrested, including 9 people in Huainan (Li Mou and 8 "big bosses") and 17 people in Shandong, including Yin Moumou.
The police handling the case revealed that the 8 WeChat groups in Huainan have a total of thousands of members, "they sell products online, and there are physical stores offline, which makes many middle-aged and elderly people believe that this is a regular company." They think there are stores there and can't run away, so they believe that their products are regular."
The police found that the two main suspects in the case, Yin X and Zhang X, had more than 300 million yuan inflows in the past year. In just over a year, the two each earned more than 100 million yuan in illegal gains.
When the police checked the mobile phone of Yin Moumou's wife, they found that the balance on her mobile bank was more than 20 million yuan, and 38 kilograms of gold bars were also found in her home. Yin Moumou confessed that because there was so much money in the account that made him feel uneasy, he bought 15 million yuan of gold bars to store at home as a wealth left to his daughter; The police inspected the mobile phone of suspect Zhang Moumou and also found that the balance on the mobile bank was more than 40 million yuan.
A banner on the streets of Huainan City, Anhui Province, to prevent pension fraud. Photo/ Reporter Zhou Qunfeng
"Buckle the disease" and "make a crisis" for the elderly
At the same time that the criminal gang was destroyed, the police also seized a large number of fake health care products. When China News Weekly interviewed the network security brigade of the Tianjia'an Branch of the Huainan City Public Security Bureau, the police handling the case showed dozens of products to reporters. From the outside, these fake health care products are exquisitely packaged, and the names are also very confusing, such as snow lotus selenopeide tablets, blue fruit VC tablets, compound multi-dimensional turtle combined calcium, ginseng four-substance paste, iron stick yam powder, ejiao guyuan cake and so on.
According to the suspects, these products are produced by some food processing plants that they contacted, belong to candy or solid drinks, and the factory price ranges from a few yuan to 20 yuan per kilogram, and does not have health care functions and medicinal value.
After seizing these products, the police also hired the Huainan Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau to identify these products, and the results were that they did not have a therapeutic effect.
After interrogation, more details of the past and crimes of the two main suspects were further clarified. Mr. Yin once did sales in a company in Beijing, and he had attended a specialty in a medical college in Beijing, so he had a certain understanding of pharmacological knowledge. Yin Moumou said that his professional pharmacist's identity is true, but he has never worked in the hospital, and the so-called academician, the person in charge of stem cell therapy, and more than 20 years of clinical experience are all fabricated. Zhang Moumou originally worked in a supermarket, and he had no medical background and knew nothing about medicine.
The police revealed that Yin and Zhang are both about 40 years old this year. They have also done health care product sales, and in 2020 the two met at a food fair in Shandong. Seeing that health care products have considerable profits, in April 2021, the partnership registered a biotechnology company in Shandong, and developed a national agent, hired "lecturers", and opened a webcast room.
When the gang cooperates with agents, it does not sign cooperation agreements. In order to better manage the middle-aged and elderly, some agents also recruit people to set up WeChat groups and become group owners (that is, "big bosses"). The sales price of these fake health care products is determined by Yin and Zhang, and the profit ratio between them and the agent is 55%. For example, an elderly person places an order through an agent to buy a product of 1,000 yuan, and after the agent receives this money, he can directly deduct 500 yuan and call the other 500 yuan to the account of the head office.
Yin and Zhang also hired Feng as a "lecturer" and fabricated the identity of a doctor and nutrition expert for Feng. In fact, Feng Moumou is only a mechanic and has no medical background. In this way, Yin and Feng appeared live to the middle-aged and elderly. After being arrested, Feng Moumou confessed that the names he used in the live broadcast were all fake, and in less than 1 year, he obtained a share of up to 360,000 yuan.
The criminal gang also formulated a special language technique for middle-aged and elderly people, of which Yin Moumou was the main formulator of the speech technique. For example, if someone asks why these health care products do not have small blue labels, the corresponding technique is "this is a new resource product, no need for small blue labels".
In the chat messages seized by the police, some elderly people asked cancer patients whether they could take their products, and some patients took products and had adverse reactions, and the gang members replied with pre-made words that "they can all be taken" and "detoxification reactions after taking".
Police revealed that the gang recruits agents across the country (there are currently more than 200 confirmed by materials and evidence) who range in age from their 20s to their 50s. If they can't answer some of the questions raised by customers, they will feedback to the head office, and the customer service will reply, "In this case, Yin and Zhang will let the customer service search on Baidu first, and then notify the agent of the answer, and then feedback to the middle-aged and elderly, if Baidu can't answer, let the customer go to the hospital in time, and follow the doctor's instructions."
The customer service staff of the gang's headquarters are basically young women in their 20s, many of whom have secondary school or high school education and lack medical knowledge. Their daily work is to convey various words to agents across the country, and at the same time collect the order lists reported by agents, and they count and ship.
Li Jie said that in their words, they clearly mentioned that they should give middle-aged and elderly people "buckle disease" and "get rid of the crisis". The former refers to the fact that when they talk about where they are uncomfortable in the WeChat group, when they reply to them, they say that they are missing a certain nutrient, and long-term lack will cause illness; The latter refers to exaggerating the condition, causing them to feel fearful, and then buying more of their products.
"90% of victims hide from their families"
"China News Weekly" learned from the police handling the case that after being arrested, Yin Moumou confessed to his criminal facts. He said that he regretted it very much, did not expect to be this ending, and did not want to have this ending. He said that his actions caused damage to the middle-aged and elderly people in two ways, "one is the loss of money, and the other is the delay of the disease."
"How would you feel if your parents were exposed to this kind of scam?" Yin Moumou's chief police officer Li Jie asked. Yin replied that his parents are in their 60s this year and have some diseases, and if they encounter such a scam, "I will be very angry."
The police handling the case said that in order to maximize profits, the gang involved in the case will also carefully select and compare when looking for cooperative food companies.
China News Weekly looked at the text on these fake health products and saw that the companies that had produced for the gang had spread throughout Shandong, Henan, Anhui and other provinces. Among them, a company located in a city in Shandong province cooperated with the criminal gang on more than 20 products.
Li Jie said that when the police learned about the situation with the victims, they found that 90% of the victims did not tell their families about their experience in purchasing such so-called health care products. "Many of these groups have retired, have some savings, and don't have to reach out to their children when they spend money," he said. They are 'brainwashed' to believe in the efficacy of these products and are afraid that their families will stop them from buying. At the same time, many elderly people do not live with their children, and it is not easy for children to find that they are quietly taking these things. In addition, when these gang members sell them, the aunt is long and the aunt is short, which makes them feel close. ”
He said that the case involved a large number of victims, and at present, the work of sorting out and verifying the victim groups is being carried out closely. Because of the long-term acceptance of the health product scam, some elderly people have been "brainwashed" very thoroughly. Even after the gang was knocked out, some elderly people still thought that these products were "effective" after taking them.
China News Weekly learned that some of the victims in the case were even highly educated, and some were staff in regular hospitals even before retirement. Police said that as the elderly grow older, their adaptability, speed of response, and the way they think about problems will change. You may not be fooled if you are not highly educated and have a medical career background. Some even if they have high academic qualifications, they may lack professional knowledge, and the suspects have deliberately given these products names such as snow titanium and capsules, which increases the confusion.
Li Jie told China News Weekly that the nature of the pension scam of counterfeit health care products is bad, and its harm is not only to cause the elderly to suffer property losses, but also to delay medical treatment, causing them to be in danger of aggravation. It is hoped that more middle-aged and elderly people, especially the elderly, can learn from this case.
At present, the suspect in the case is still in the stage of criminal detention, and the police are about to submit a request to the prosecution for arrest.
Published in China News Weekly magazine on July 18, 2022
Magazine title: The billion-dollar pension scam hidden in candy
Reporter: Zhou Qunfeng
Source: China News Weekly