Source: CCTV news client
Ms. Zhao is a lover of online games. One day in 2020, she received a message of preferential recharge of game currency, unexpectedly, this information not only made Ms. Zhao lose tens of thousands of yuan, but also pulled out a black and gray industrial chain dedicated to providing fund settlement for cross-border online gambling and telecommunications fraud criminal gangs, involving an amount of nearly 5 billion yuan.
According to Ms. Zhao's recollection, one day in February 2020, while playing the game, she received a message from a strange game friend, claiming that she could recharge the game currency at a discount.
Victim Ms. Zhao: Because he was posted in this big game world, I thought he was the official customer service, and I didn't have any doubts about him.
Ms. Zhao said that with the mentality of trying it out, she added the other party's QQ number, and then the other party sent her a network link. According to the guidance of the other party, Ms. Zhao purchased a recharge package of 50 yuan after real-name registration.
Victim Ms. Zhao: Normally, if I charge 50 yuan, I can get five hundred game coins. I can get these 680 game coins for 50 yuan now, and I am still very excited.
Activate the game account Serial sets one by one
At this time, the game account shows that the recharge is successful, but it needs to be activated to be used in the game. How can I activate it? The other party said that Ms. Zhao needs to recharge 680 yuan to activate the game account, but the other party said that after successful activation, the recharge amount can be withdrawn.
Victim Ms. Zhao: I charged 680 twice, the first time, he told me that my hand speed was slow, and then I lost the bank account again, I charged 680 again, and then he told me that my account was frozen. After 50 once and 680 twice, he told me that my account was frozen. You need to recharge 3999 twice so that you can activate this number.
Hearing that she still had to continue to recharge, Ms. Zhao hesitated, but after thinking about it, she could still withdraw cash, and Ms. Zhao continued to recharge according to the other party's prompts.
Victim Ms. Zhao: Because I already had two 680s before, and then I still had game currency, I really wanted to let the money come back, and I didn't suspect it, so I paid him two more 3999s, paid in two installments, a total of more than seven thousand yuan.
In less than 2 hours, the victim transferred nearly 20,000 yuan successively
A few minutes later, the other party told Ms. Zhao that her game account had been successfully activated, but because it did not reach a certain amount of accumulated recharge, it could not be withdrawn, and if she wanted to withdraw, she needed to continue to recharge 7998 yuan. In this way, in less than 2 hours, Ms. Zhao transferred 18,816 yuan to the designated account through her mobile phone.
Victim Ms. Zhao: I was waiting for him to withdraw all the money to me and return it to my bank card, I went to urge him, I went to chat with him. He asked me how much money was left in the bank card account you provided me with? I said I had two or three hundred dollars left, what? He said that your bank card is not qualified, you must use an amount of money to add up to 18816, as far as the money I paid before, the balance in the bank card must reach more than eighteen thousand, he can withdraw me.
Not only is it impossible to withdraw cash, but it is also "blocked" and cannot be contacted
Due to the delay in withdrawing cash, Ms. Zhao sensed that something was wrong, and when she contacted the other party again to return the money, she found that she had already been blocked.
Victim Ms. Zhao: When I talk to him again, he ignores me. Then I went to the game world to look for him and talk to him, but there was no movement. QQ has always been offline, and then I realized that I may have been deceived.
Shunto touched the melon and locked the suspect according to the remittance record
After realizing that she had been deceived, Ms. Zhao chose to call the police. According to Ms. Zhao's remittance records, after investigation, the police quickly locked the criminal suspect Liu Mou, and followed the vine to find the melon, locking another criminal suspect Fu Mou.
Li Yonggang, captain of the network security brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: It was found that Liu received about 100 funds per day on WeChat, and the amount of funds per day ranged from 350 to 3500, and after receiving each fund, it would then be transferred to The WeChat account of Fu.
The police investigation found that Fu X had a legitimate profession, but used the payment QR code for a long time to carry out illegal and criminal activities such as the collection and transfer of illegal funds.
Li Yonggang, captain of the network security brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: After receiving each fund through WeChat, after the withdrawal is transferred to her bank card, she will transfer each money she collects to another bank card through online banking.
Rent someone else's collection code Responsible for receiving and transferring illegal funds
According to Fu's transfer records, the police found that every time Fu received money, it would be transferred to Zhang's bank card. The police investigation found that Zhang mou obtained other people's "electronic collection codes" through rent for a long time, helping a "fourth-party payment platform" called "Zhongzheng Group Running Sub-platform" to receive and transfer illegal funds. According to the police, the so-called fourth-party payment platform refers to an illegal payment channel that has not obtained a state payment settlement license.
Yang Donghao, captain of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: The fourth-party platform is a platform called a fourth-party payment platform with the help of a third-party platform, that is, a platform that has not obtained a national financial license is called a fourth-party platform, they are these people who help the fourth-party platform to collect money, they call themselves code merchants.
According to the police, in the criminal gang, like Zhang Mou, who is responsible for collecting other people's "electronic collection codes" and providing them to the fourth-party payment platform for use, is called "code merchants". And those who provide "electronic collection codes" are called "code farmers".
Yang Donghao, captain of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: There may be more than a dozen or twenty people in the team, who use their own two-dimensional codes, two-dimensional codes of relatives and friends, and two-dimensional codes of many people to collect, that is, to help this platform collect money.
Use high rebates as bait to solicit others to lend out payment accounts
According to the police, the "fourth-party payment platform" is also known as the "running sub-platform". The so-called "running score" here is to use the electronic collection code to collect money for others, and then earn commissions.
"Running score platform" refers to an online platform that circulates illegal funds such as gambling and fraud through the "running score" model and evades supervision. The police found that in order to expand the scale, Zhang Used high rebates as bait to solicit others to lend his own payment accounts, and these leased payment accounts were used in large quantities for telecommunications network fraud, gambling, pornography and other illegal and criminal activities to collect money, which was actually money laundering.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new network crime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Zhang Mou told them that this is overseas gambling, collecting money from overseas casinos, but overseas casinos are legal abroad, so we collect money for it in China, and we are also legal. In this way, they make a misleading act, and these people begin to help him collect money.
The "downline" involves a wide range of people transferring huge amounts of illegal funds
The police investigation found that every time Zhang transferred an illegal fund, he could extract a certain amount of money from it according to the proportion. His downline involved a wide range of people, the transfer of illegal funds was huge, and after strict deployment, in July 2020, the police arrested Zhang in Fujian.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Zone bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: The suspect (Zhang Mou) who issued the command will drag several types of illegal and criminal activities to a separate small group, and then inform them from this small group of what time and place today, how to provide, and which two-dimensional code to use to collect money. (Code farmer) send this two-dimensional code to the victim or gambling participants through the APP or website, and each fund can reach nearly ten million, and the minimum is between half a million and one million. (Zhang Mou) The total amount of accounts is nearly 200 million yuan.
With the arrest of criminal suspect Zhang Mou, You Mou entered the sight of the police. The police investigation found that You Mou is Zhang Mou's online line, the leader of a code merchant gang, and there are many code merchants like Zhang Mou under her.
Yang Donghao, captain of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: It was found that You Mou had a chat group, and there were more than one hundred and seventy code merchant groups at the same level as Zhang Mou in this chat group. These small teams of code merchants each have 10 to 20 people, and they receive a very large amount of money.
Grasp the personnel structure and foothold of the "code merchant" and launch an arrest
In September 2020, after grasping the personnel structure and foothold of this "code merchant" gang, the police launched an arrest operation, arrested the main criminal suspect You Mou and others, and seized a large number of items involved in the case.
Yang Donghao, captain of the new network crime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: You mou is directly responsible for communicating with the technical and service personnel of this "Zhongzheng running sub-platform", such an organizer of the code merchant, we found that You Mou profited more than 5 million yuan after analysis.
Combing through illegal funds, there are unexpected discoveries
After the code merchant gang headed by You Mou was arrested, the police had an unexpected discovery in the process of combing illegal funds, in addition to the code merchant gang that used the electronic collection code for money laundering, there was also a card merchant gang that specialized in using the four-piece set of bank cards to help the criminal gang launder money.
The bank card flow of a migrant worker is as high as nearly 3 billion yuan
According to the police, the four-piece bank card set refers to "bank card, ID card, mobile phone card, online banking U shield", and the so-called "card dealer" is a criminal suspect who acquires, rents and sells others' "four-piece bank card set". Those who sell and rent out their "four-piece bank card set" are called "Cannon". The police studied and judged the funds involved in the case and found that the flow of the funds involved in the case had been remitted to a personal bank card in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, and the flow of this bank card was as high as nearly 3 billion yuan.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new network crime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: The flow of this card is 1.37 billion yuan in the account and 1.37 billion yuan in the account, and the flow of the entire card is 27.4 billion, which is definitely extremely inconsistent with the income of this migrant worker.
The police investigation found that the card owner of this bank card was Song Mou. According to Song's account after his arrest, he sold his bank card four-piece set to a man named Wang Mou.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Wang seized the loophole that Song did not understand the law and bought Song's card at a very low price. The amount of four-piece sets of bank cards he received and sold ranged from $800 to $1,500 per month.
Acquisition of bank card "four-piece set" and then sale to "superior"
Further investigation by the police found that Wang was a "card merchant" who specialized in acquiring four-piece sets of other people's bank cards. He mainly targets people with weak legal awareness, buys four sets of their personal bank cards, and then sells them to the upper level card dealers.
Between March 2019 and May 2020, Wang sold nearly 4,000 sets of cards. The owners of these cards are basically the elderly over 60 years old, as well as students and migrant workers.
The police investigation found that the four sets of personal bank cards purchased by Wang were sold to Zhao in Liaoning.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new network crime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Wang will sell to Zhao at a price of 5,000 yuan, and Zhao will resell to Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan at a price of 8,000 yuan.
Bank cards are mailed everywhere The consignee uses a false identity
According to Wang's account after his arrest, after he negotiated the price with Zhao, he would follow the instructions of the other party and mail it to Fujian, Yunnan, Guangxi and other places by courier, and he did not know who the specific recipient was.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Every time Wang mails these bank cards, he will give Wang a mailing address. The personnel of each mailing address are changed, each time is a different person, the consignee is not the same consignee, but these consignees do not have real names.
Start with the courier bill to find clues
Since the recipient's information cannot be determined, the clue seems to have been interrupted here, so how can we continue to track the whereabouts of these four-piece bank cards? The police decided to start from the courier bill sent by Wang Mou to look for clues, and sure enough, after combing the courier mailed by Wang, a detail attracted the attention of the police. Among the packages sent by Wang in the past month, three of them were sent to Dehua County, Fujian Province. Subsequently, the Tongliao police rushed to Dehua, Fujian Province, to carry out a visit and exploration platoon, and after visiting, it was found that the three packages sent by Wang Mou to here were all taken away by a man named Lin Mou.
Yang Donghao, captain of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: These three pickup addresses are all collected by Lin Mou, and the next day, the express delivery will be subcontracted to send international express logistics.
The "four-piece set" flowed into the hands of overseas telecommunications gangs
After further investigation by the police, a criminal gang headed by Lin Mou who specialized in purchasing and selling "four-piece bank card sets" surfaced. Four sets of personal bank cards from all over the country were continuously sent to Dehua, Fujian Province, and then the criminal suspects sold these four sets of bank cards to criminal suspects engaged in telecommunications network fraud abroad through courier.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Packaged into Dehua porcelain, packaged into handicrafts and mailed abroad.
The structure of the gang members is complex and the division of labor is clear
The police investigation found that this criminal gang had a complex structure and a clear division of labor, and was mainly active in the Fujian area. In order to completely cut off the passage of this four-piece bank card to the outside world, the police have made careful arrangements to arrest Lin and other criminal suspects.
Yang Donghao, commander of the new cybercrime investigation brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Lin mou received four sets of bank cards were all mailed to Southeast Asia and handed over to Sun Moubin, who bought four sets of bank cards at a price of 12,000 yuan in Lin, and Lin's profit was more than 16 million yuan. According to Lin's confession, more than 16 million yuan was transferred to him by Sun Moubin through a bank card.
A key role in the money laundering process Another gang was pulled out
The police found that the bank cards provided by the criminal gang headed by Lin Mou coincided with the bank cards used by Zhang Mou's code merchant gang, and what was even more surprising to the police was that in addition to the two gangs of code merchants and card merchants, there was another gang that played a key role in the entire money laundering process, that is, the "driver" team.
According to the police, the so-called "rider" team refers to a criminal gang that specializes in helping gambling, fraud and other criminal activities to withdraw cash. These include "cash riders" and "delivery riders". Cash-out drivers, as the name suggests, are criminal suspects who specialize in withdrawing cash at banks, and delivery drivers are criminal suspects who are responsible for transporting these cash. So how did the police find this criminal gang? This also begins with an unexpected discovery by the police in the process of combing through the case.
Lu Ran, instructor of the Network Security Brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: We combed the longest capital chain to reach level 14, only to find that it has a convergence point. Through a large number of data analysis, we found that part of the funds in the bank card involved in the case were collected in a bank card named Shi Mouchi.
The police investigation found that the illegal funds of the code merchant gang and the card merchant gang had been confluenced on the same bank card. Subsequently, the police launched an investigation into this bank card, and found that this bank card had withdrawn cash many times in a bank in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, and after further investigation, the police determined that the person who withdrew the cash was Shi Mouchi, the owner of this bank card.
Lu Ran, instructor of the network security brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: It was found that Shi Mouchi's transaction volume in the bank reached more than 50 million yuan in a few months, and it was indeed Shi Mouchi himself who was operating, and she had to withdraw hundreds of thousands or millions of funds every day to withdraw cash at the bank counter.
The police investigation found that after Shi Mouchi withdrew cash at the bank, he would hand over the cash to Shi Mou hook for transportation.
Lu Ran, instructor of the network security brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: After they withdraw cash, they will put the cash in a cardboard box, package it and transfer it, and they will say that they are in the tea business, the carton is filled with tea, and they call this cash tea.
After retrieving the trajectory of Shi Mou's hook, the police found that he had gone to the parking lot in front of a hotel in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and handed over a cardboard box containing cash to a man.
Tongliao City Public Security Bureau Economic and Technological Development Zone Network Security Brigade Instructor Lu Ran: He was dressed very casually, because the south is also relatively hot, wearing a pull board, a shorts came out, holding cash he went to the elevator, this cash is more than a million, out of the hotel elevator, Shi Mou hook handed the cardboard box containing cash to his line, from the video, the two did not speak, the transaction was completed.
The gang has hundreds of members and involves multiple provinces
After investigation, the police finally locked his online name Shi Mouwen, and Shi Mouwen is the leader of a team of drivers, this criminal gang has hundreds of members and involves multiple provinces.
Lu Ran, instructor of the Network Security Brigade of the Economic and Technological Development Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: We found that he (Shi Mouwen) has such a working group, and there are more than 100 members of the group, of which there are 23 financial personnel in overseas casinos, and the remaining dozens are the contacts of the domestic cash withdrawal rider team. The financial staff of overseas casinos will release some cash withdrawal tasks and amounts from time to time in this group, and then the contact person of the domestic driver team will receive the order.
Earn settlement fees for providing capital services to overseas gangs
The police investigation found that the criminal gang headed by Shi Mouwen used thousands of bank cards to provide illegal fund withdrawal and transfer services for various overseas gambling and fraud gangs, and earned a large number of settlement fees.
Tongliao City Public Security Bureau Economic and Technological Development Zone Network Security Brigade Instructor Lu Ran: The financial personnel will notify the "running sub-platform" to transfer more than three million yuan to this bank card, plus a 1.5% commission, Shi Mouwen's cash withdrawal team of car owners offline, Shi Mouchi's bank card after receiving this amount, Shi Mouchi will withdraw this amount, while deducting 0.3% commission, after our investigation, Shi Mouwen in less than a year, through the withdrawal of cash for overseas casino personnel to obtain illegal income reached more than three million yuan.
Build a running sub-platform specifically for money laundering by overseas criminal gangs
The police arrested the main suspect Shi Mouwen and others, successfully destroyed three team of drivers, and accumulated nearly 1 billion yuan in cash and transfer cash. According to the criminal suspect Shi Mouwen, at the beginning of 2019, under the command of overseas criminal suspect Cai Mou, he built the "Zhongzheng Group Running Sub-platform", and through hierarchical agency and hierarchical commission extraction, he recruited a large number of code merchants and card merchants to carry out running sub-business, specifically for overseas gambling, online fraud and other criminal gangs to launder money.
Zhang Han, deputy director of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: Taking this gambling platform as an example, after the gambler has a recharge demand on the gambling platform, the gambling platform will send the demand to the Zhongzheng Group running sub-platform, and this platform will also generate corresponding orders according to the demand for recharge amounts, and hang them on the APP, and the corresponding code merchants will grab the order. After the order is successful, upload the QR code for payment, and the gambler will make the payment. After that, the running sub-platform confirms the completion of the order, and the gambler is successfully recharged. In the later stage of the running sub-platform, the gambling platform was helped to transfer funds and settle through the four-piece set of personal bank cards that were illegally acquired before, and the illegal funds were whitewashed.
Multi-police coordinated operations destroy the black and gray industrial chain
Due to the large number of arrest targets, the wide area involved, and the complexity of the case, in order to smoothly close the network, the Tongliao police set up 20 arrest teams, dispatched nearly 100 police forces to the places involved in the case throughout the country, coordinated operations between multiple police departments, and cooperated with the public security of many places to arrest criminal suspects.
Mou Dejun, director of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao Municipal Public Security Bureau: The new type of cybercrime case involving an amount of nearly 5 billion yuan lasted eight months, spanned 21 provinces and cities, covered and fully chain, and carried out a comprehensive crackdown on the Zhongzheng running sub-platform, completely destroying the black and gray industrial chain that provides fund settlement for cross-border online gambling and telecommunications network crime fraud gangs.
The police arrested a total of 54 criminal suspects, seized more than 1,000 bank cards involved in the case, and froze more than 20 million yuan of funds involved in the case.
Mou Dejun, director of the Economic and Technological Development Zone Bureau of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau: There are more than 500 mobile phone cards, 5.65 million yuan in cash seized, and more than 20 million yuan in frozen funds involved in the case. There were eight gangs, of which two were code merchant gangs, three were rider gangs, and three were card merchant gangs.
On March 22, 2021, the Tongliao police investigation was concluded and transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution. At present, the case is in the process of further consideration.
Li Jiawei, deputy director of the First Procuratorial Department of the Horqin District People's Procuratorate in Tongliao City: At present, all the file examination work has been completed, and a public prosecution has been filed with the Horqin District People's Court on suspicion of theft, obstruction of credit card management, assistance in information network criminal activities, and concealment of the proceeds of crimes.