On January 4, the People's Procuratorate of Chaoyang District, Beijing (hereinafter referred to as the "Chaoyang District Procuratorate") held a press conference on the "Financial Prosecution White Paper" to release the eighth volume of the "Financial Prosecution White Paper" to the public, and reported on the financial crime prosecution work of the Chaoyang District Procuratorate in 2023.
The Beijing News reporter learned that from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023, the Chaoyang District Procuratorate accepted 773 financial crime cases and 1,809 people, including 400 cases of arrest and 1,011 people, and 373 cases of 798 people. In 2023, the number and number of financial crime cases accepted by the Chaoyang District Procuratorate increased by 12.4% and 23.8% compared to the same period in 2022.
The scene of the press conference. Source: People's Procuratorate of Chaoyang District, Beijing
The number of illegal fundraising cases still ranks first in financial crime cases
According to the Chaoyang District Procuratorate, in terms of case types, the distribution of crimes involved in financial crime cases accepted in 2023 is relatively concentrated, and the structure of major crimes has not changed much compared with 2022. From the point of view of crimes, the accepted cases are mainly concentrated in illegal fund-raising cases (mainly referring to the crimes of illegally absorbing public deposits and fund-raising fraud), illegal business (financial business), money laundering, credit card fraud, etc., of which the number of illegal fund-raising cases is 717, still ranking first, and the number of accepted financial crime cases accounted for 92.8% of the number of financial crime cases accepted in the same period.
The number of illegal fundraising cases will show a downward trend in 2022 with a decrease of 52.1%, and the number of accepted cases will increase by 31.6% compared with the same period in 2022, with the number of cases accepted increasing by 31.6% compared with the same period in 2022. Some crimes have shown a sharp downward trend year by year, and the number of insurance fraud cases accepted by 12 people has decreased by more than 50% for two consecutive years since 2022.
From December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023, 718 of the 798 defendants in financial crime cases concluded by the Chaoyang District Procuratorate voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment and signed the "Plea Affidavit", with the plea application rate reaching 89.99%, and at the same time, hundreds of millions of yuan in stolen goods and losses were recovered, and the quality and efficiency of case handling were significantly improved. In the process of handling financial crime cases, the Chaoyang District Procuratorate actively used big data legal supervision models such as counterfeit and shoddy sales, real estate mortgages, cases involving two cards, and illegal fund-raising and third-party payment to dig deep into criminal clues, correcting 106 missed arrests and 81 missing prosecutions, transferring 341 internal clues and completing 309 cases, and 76 external clues and 13 completed cases. Finally, while punishing crimes, the Chaoyang District Procuratorate actively participated in financial governance, and issued 52 procuratorial suggestions to the outside world, all of which were adopted.
非法集资类案件追赃挽损难度大
The circular pointed out that in financial crime cases, various types of cases present different characteristics. Among them, the incidence of illegal fundraising cases continued to be high, and the publicity name of "comprehensive and professional" was highly targeted, further increasing the difficulty of recovering stolen goods and recovering losses. Such cases closely follow social hotspots and anchor financial innovation and reform, using new concepts such as private equity funds, blockchain, and virtual currencies as publicity gimmicks to illegally raise a large amount of funds; After obtaining citizens' information through illegal means, they can "customize" investment projects and carry out "counterpartial" publicity to meet the diversified investment needs of different groups to achieve their criminal goals. In most cases, there are a large number of bank flows, and the flow of funds is complicated, making it difficult to find out where the funds are going, which brings great difficulty to the recovery of stolen goods and losses.
The circular also pointed out that the crime of illegally operating financial business is showing a trend of frequent occurrence, and the modus operandi is constantly "advanced" and has a tendency towards industrialization. Illegal financial business is mainly concentrated in futures, foreign exchange, etc., and most of them are committed by gangs. Such cases attract job seekers to engage in foreign exchange business through the establishment of seemingly "formally operated" companies and the publication of recruitment information on websites such as Zhaopin.com, while the number of cases of engaging in securities consulting and other businesses without relevant business qualifications has increased. Criminals look for potential "stockholders" to use unified language to recommend stocks and charge service fees without securities consulting and other business qualifications. Using a special trading platform, it is difficult to collect evidence and determine the amount of the crime. Criminals mostly use specialized trading platforms, and in practice, it is often difficult to find out the true source of the above-mentioned trading platforms, it is difficult to obtain the background data of the platforms, it is difficult to investigate and collect evidence, and it is difficult to accurately determine the amount of crimes.
Insurance fraud crimes are concentrated in the field of motor insurance
The circular also mentioned that financial fraud cases are concentrated in the field of credit insurance, and the number of cases has shown a significant downward trend. The main forms of credit card fraud have become theft and cash-out, and the characteristics of criminal chain are obvious, forming an upstream and downstream black and gray industry chain. Obtain information group, handle POS machine and other equipment group, theft group, receive stolen money and withdraw cash transfer group and other teams work together to complete the crime, and evade detection by reducing the contact between upstream and downstream personnel; criminals also use new theft technologies such as "pseudo base station + sniffing" to take advantage of security loopholes to "take money from the air" and increase the difficulty of evidence collection. It is worth noting that the crime of stealing other people's bank cards by using the "SMS sniffing" technology is a "non-contact" means of committing crimes, which are highly concealed and highly mobile, which brings great difficulties to lock down criminal suspects and fix evidence. Due to the collusion and joint implementation of multiple parties, it is often difficult for insurance companies to detect and passively expand economic losses.
The Chaoyang prosecutor mentioned that at present, the trend of illegal pyramid marketing is obvious, and it is characterized by scale. Criminals take advantage of the characteristics of cyberspace, such as low cost, low threshold, and no time and space restrictions, and constantly establish new platforms to realize the transmission and rapid replication of transaction models, and the large-scale spread trend is rapid, bringing great financial risks. Criminal methods are becoming more and more hidden, and "reverse compliance" makes it more difficult to detect. On the one hand, criminals use the network to develop a large number of personnel and adopt a flat management method and the corresponding remuneration and rebate model, and on the other hand, they deliberately strip off the relationship between the collection accounts and deliberately manipulate them, creating the false impression of multiple independent pyramid marketing organizations, and deliberately circumventing the three-level structure of pyramid marketing and the "threshold" of 30 people to be criminalized, which brings certain difficulties to the investigation and collection of evidence and the characterization of the case.
In addition, the Chaoyang prosecutor also mentioned that the predicate crimes of money laundering are relatively concentrated, the money laundering of relatives and friends and the money laundering of professional gangs are "dual-track", and the money laundering methods are constantly "upgraded and iterative". The predicate crimes are concentrated in the category of illegal fund-raising and job-related crimes. In 2023, the number of money laundering cases of illegal fund-raising handled has achieved a breakthrough of "zero", and the number of money laundering cases of job-related crimes has steadily increased. Professional money laundering criminal gangs have gradually formed, with a clear division of labor among team members, mutual cooperation, and professional "money laundering services" for upstream criminals in the form of "commercialization" such as signing contracts and paying labor fees; With the advancement of information network technology and the development of financial innovation, new money laundering methods such as professional network "running points" payment platforms, securities trading, and Internet transactions have been derived. Traditional and new money laundering methods are intertwined, and the transfer and conversion of funds are extremely complex, which brings great challenges to the financial regulatory authorities and judicial authorities to ascertain the source, nature and destination of funds.
Beijing News reporter Xiong Lixin
Edited by Peng Chong and proofread by Yang Xuli