Behind the "debtors" who were fooled into "lying down to make millions", there are operators and intermediary companies that match assets that package the identity of the "debtors", and then purchase real estate to obtain loans through high-evaluation means, and then apply to the bank for decoration loans, credit loans and other cash-outs, and finally dump the huge loans to the "debtors" who are unable to repay.
A video of a debtor sent to a reporter by an intermediary in Shandong. In the video, the debtor holds his credit report and reads the content of the document according to the intermediary's requirements. Screenshot of the video
▼ Full text 4113 words Read about 15 minutes
On December 15, 2023, the Shanghai police disclosed a mortgage fraud case involving 60 million yuan. In this case, "debtors", scalpers, real estate agents, loan agents, bank employees, etc. took turns on the stage and cooperated to perform a drama of using "debtors" to buy houses and defraud loan arbitrage, and in the end, 34 suspects were arrested by the police.
The Beijing News reporter's investigation found that at present, there are still many scalpers on social platforms, using private messages and other methods to lure "debtors", and the promise of "1 million in 1 month" and "5 million in 3 to 6 months" comes casually. Behind this seemingly short-term profiteering, there are hidden pits, some people are kicked away by intermediaries after taking millions of loans, and some people are deceived into obtaining information such as ID cards and bank cards to carry out illegal and criminal activities.
A loan intermediary's business card shows that you can make all kinds of loans using cars, houses, businesses, etc. Photo by Beijing News reporter Cheng Yalong
"'Debtors' generally choose old singles or terminally ill patients, and young people rarely have debts. A scalper told the Beijing News reporter that such people need money and have no ability to repay, and the lender has no way to take them afterwards.
The Beijing News reporter learned that "debt" mainly existed in the field of credit loans earlier, but in recent years, it has begun to enter the housing loan. Behind the "debtors" who were fooled into "lying down to make millions", there are operators and intermediary companies that match assets that package the identity of the "debtors", and then purchase real estate to obtain loans through high-evaluation means, and then apply to the bank for decoration loans, credit loans and other cash-outs, and finally dump the huge loans to the "debtors" who are unable to repay.
Guo Mingjie, an associate professor at Henan Polytechnic University, believes that when housing prices fall and the value of the property is lower than the loan balance, it will be difficult for buyers to sell the property and even need to pay the difference. The market is prone to potential transaction patterns between property sellers, professional debtors and intermediaries. The phenomenon of debtors has multiple negative impacts, which will lead to an increase in non-performing loans in the financial system, exacerbate the instability of the real estate market, exacerbate social inequality, and involve legal risks.
11 properties involved in "debt-bearing" loan fraud cases
Mr. Li was one of the "debtors" in the Shanghai mortgage fraud case.
Mr. Li told the police that at the end of 2019, he was introduced to Shanghai by a scalper to engage in a "debt-bearing" business. The scalper promised that after the transfer of a property in his name and the mortgage was down, Mr. Li could take 60% of the loan amount, and his annual income was only 30,000 or 40,000 yuan.
Since non-local household registration, only husband and wife can obtain the qualification to buy a house in Shanghai. The day after the negotiation, Mr. Li and his wife arrived in Shanghai by plane from out of town. According to the intermediary's requirements, the couple opened a new bank card and phone card in Shanghai, and after handing over the relevant materials to the intermediary, they went back to their hometown and waited for the notice.
While selecting Mr. Li, the "debtor", the agent is also looking for a suitable property.
Ms. Xu from Shanghai is eager to sell a 199-square-meter penthouse in Qingpu District due to cash flow. Because the house is located in the middle of nowhere and has a large area, it has been unattended since it was listed. Later, the real estate agent Shen took the initiative to find her.
Ms. Xu said that at that time, the agent surnamed Shen said that their company wanted to take over the property in the name of the employee. Because the company needs funds and can't use the money for the down payment, it needs her cooperation to make the appraisal price of the house higher.
"Can the bank approve the price of real estate? Ms. Xu questioned at the time, but the agent told her that she only needed to cooperate with the signature, and the rest was not to be taken care of, and the bank's loan would eventually be credited to her bank card, so there was no need to worry.
Ms. Xu said that her mentality at that time was that as long as she was in place for the house payment she deserved, she was willing to return the extra money lent by the bank to the intermediary Shen.
After the two parties negotiated, Mr. Li was called to Shanghai by the intermediary again, and the two parties cooperated to sign the house sale contract and go through the relevant procedures for applying for a housing loan.
The police verified that the actual value of the house was only 2.53 million yuan, which was assessed at 5.5 million yuan, and finally loaned 3.57 million yuan from the bank, in addition to the house payment due to Ms. Xu and the various taxes and fees paid, the agent still made a profit of 850,000 yuan. The money was eventually divided between real estate agents, loan agents, scalpers and others, and Mr. Li only got 10,000 yuan.
The circle of friends released by scalpers to recruit debtors said that loans of 3 million to 8 million in 3 to 6 months are equivalent to taking money. Screenshot of the webpage
The police combed through the transactions of local houses with obviously inflated transaction prices and found that 11 properties were suspected of loan fraud, with a total amount of more than 60 million yuan. The police investigation found that it was impossible to complete this series of illegal transactions with real estate agents alone.
In June 2023, the police arrested 34 suspects involved in the case. According to the real estate agent Shen, the loan agent was able to apply for the loan smoothly by making false materials and buying off the bank's loan staff to complete the high-assessment arbitrage.
The bank employee involved in the case confessed that according to the normal process, the value of the house needs to be assessed by the appraisal company first, but in this operation, the cart before the horse. She sent the house sale and purchase contract signed by the two parties with a transaction price of 5.5 million yuan to the appraisal company in advance, so that it could be evaluated according to the contract price, and finally passed the bank's review.
Scalpers send "monthly income million" advertisements to solicit "debtors"
Similar to Mr. Li's "debtors", they all joined in response to the promise of scalpers to "lie down and earn millions".
In the circle of friends of scalper Lan Xudong, a large number of news were released to recruit "debtors", and most of the news was accompanied by a photo of hundreds of thousands of yuan in cash placed in the co-pilot's seat.
A scalper's circle of friends who recruited debtors said that they would get 30 (10,000) to 400,000 yuan a month. Screenshot of the webpage
"Straight back 400 (10,000), pure white households, flower households, age 25 to 45 years old", "do commercial housing, 400,000 a month, you can match large enterprises in the later stage, 300 (10,000) to 400 (10,000)". From the end of December 2023 to the beginning of January this year, Lan Xudong released a similar message every few days: "The last batch of the year before the year, catch up to have a fat year." ”
On January 7, after reading the credit report of the Beijing News reporter, Lan Xudong said that there is a "mouth" (loan channel) suitable for doing: a villa in Hebei, you can get about 2 million after memorizing, and if you are willing to cooperate in the later stage, you can continue to make corporate loans and earn more money.
Another scalper's debt path introduced to reporters is also similar to Lan Xudong. You can make a credit loan to earn a small amount of money, during which the operator will package the identity of the debtor to pay social security, provident fund, etc., transfer the property and continue the loan. If the debtor is willing to cooperate for a long time, he can also make a large transaction flow through the company and make a corporate loan, "It generally takes 3 to 6 months, and he can get four or five million." ”
Shandong's Kikata used to be the owner of two restaurants, but in 2021, the hotel closed down with a million-dollar loan. Because he was unable to repay his debts due to credit problems, he began to help the "operator" introduce the "debtor".
Ji Fang said that his rule is to take 5 points of commission by himself, and the rest will be given to the downline who finds the "debtor", and the downline will take the excess according to the proportion of the share negotiated with the "debtor". At present, he has been in this industry for more than two years and has more than 10 downlines.
"5 points is a lot, you can't be too greedy, it's easy to get into trouble. Ji Fang said that if the loan is 3 million, then he will have a commission of 150,000, "I have made more than 10 orders this year and earned less than 1 million." ”
Ji Fang said that reporters can also be his downline, go to the Internet to find "debtors", or go to rural towns and towns to find, "Generally, those who are willing to take on debts are lazy people, or old singles, who have money to make money, and some people are willing to cooperate." ”
Lan Xudong also said that it is best to find cancer patients or old bachelors, they need money, and after the debt, the lender has nothing to do with them, "but there are not many young people who are willing to take the debt." ”
Ms. Liang, from Nanyang, Henan Province, who had been deceived into carrying debts, told reporters that she had contacted more than a dozen debtors and found that most of them were over 40 years old, and some of them were not even clear in their minds, and they were also arranged to take out loans. The operator will make different types of loans according to their respective circumstances, "that is, to enclose people, how much can be borrowed." ”
There is a deep pit behind the temptation of "debt" profiteering
How deep is the pit behind the fraudulent loan of the "debtor" transfer real estate?
On January 8, a real estate agent in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, told reporters that there were at least three layers of profit room for fraudulent loans for "debtors" to transfer real estate. The first layer is to buy a house by means of raising the assessment of housing prices, "zero down payment" or "negative down payment"; the second layer is that after the house is in hand, you can apply for a decoration loan, and the decoration loan is generally 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, if the operation is done properly, you can get two or three banks at the same time The third layer is that after the "debtor" has a house, the bank will think that he has assets, and the approval limit of personal credit or credit card will also become higher.
The loan amount operated by an intermediary in Shandong for a debtor. He said that after passing through their packaging, it is not a problem to borrow a few million. Screenshot of the webpage
"The money with debts is not so easy to take, so if you go to cooperate with the loan, why should people give you two or three million. A scalper said that on social platforms, there are many scammers who take away the bank cards of "debtors" and use them for illegal activities such as "running points (money laundering)". Even if they are not deceived into "running for points", in practice, the "debtor" is often at the bottom of the interest chain, and is used as a "tool person", and in the end cannot get the huge amount of money that was promised.
45-year-old Guo Wushu previously made a living by working part-time jobs in his hometown of Luoyang. In 2022, he was introduced to Zhengzhou and said that he could help him borrow hundreds of thousands of yuan for him to use for business. Guo Wushu went to Zhengzhou several times in many months to cooperate with the loan, but in the end he failed to get a penny.
Guo Wushu said that after he finished the car loan, he asked the agent for money, and the agent asked him to wait, and then the agent transferred a 150-square-meter property on Tongbai Road, Zhongyuan District, Zhengzhou City, under his name, and handled the loan. He asked the agent again for money, but he still didn't give a cent.
Later, when the police summoned him, they learned that the agent was using his information to commit loan fraud. At present, he has 1.6 million yuan of overdue loans in his name, "Now, these loans are in my name, and I can't afford to repay them at all." ”
In the mortgage fraud case uncovered by the Shanghai police, Mr. Li, the debtor, in addition to carrying millions of mortgages without getting the amount promised by the scalper, was also unknowingly used by the scalper to apply for several large-value credit cards and cash out more than 1 million yuan by the scalper. In this case, other debtors also encountered similar situations.
"When you are in debt, you need to provide credit reports, big data reports, ID cards, bank cards, household registration books and even marriage certificates, which means that all your personal information is in the hands of scalpers and intermediaries, who use this information to do a lot of things without your knowledge. A practitioner in the financial industry said.
Debt has exacerbated the instability of the real estate market
On January 8, a real estate agent in Zhengzhou told reporters that due to the decline in housing prices and the downturn in the market, it is difficult for landlords who buy houses at high prices to sell real estate, especially houses in the suburbs of the city. Under this phenomenon, there is a situation where "debtors" enter the property market, they help landlords "untie" and seek benefits through high-valuation means.
In December 2023, a staff member of a large state-owned bank said in an interview with the media that the bank also needs to be more conservative in its assessment of real estate under the current situation of "moisture" in the current housing listing price. At present, some banks have developed software on mobile banking for property value evaluation, and the appraisal price is relatively conservative and can be used as an auxiliary reference.
A few days ago, Guo Mingjie, an associate professor at Henan Polytechnic University, and Zhang Fan jointly published an article in the journal "New Finance" on "Exploring the Logic of Real Estate Industry Regulation through the Phenomenon of "Debtors", pointing out that when the market value of real estate is lower than the debt balance, the house will have a price but no market, and the market has spontaneously formed a potential transaction model between "house slaves" and "professional debtors" and intermediaries to arbitrage benefits.
According to the article, for intermediaries, helping "debtors" complete credit investigation activities and promote house sales activities can earn a lot of commissions. For "house slaves", selling houses through intermediaries and "debtors" can reduce economic losses. For "professional debtors", it is also possible to make a profit by exchanging credit for high returns.
On January 10, Guo Mingjie said in an interview with the Beijing News that in essence, the phenomenon of "debtor" is a distorted principal-agent relationship, and the seller avoids risks through legal means, but it will cause great harm to the normal social order, such as leading to an increase in non-performing loans in the financial system, aggravating the instability of the real estate market, and exacerbating social inequality. Therefore, the regulation of the real estate industry should first compress the space for policy arbitrage, prevent the excessive bubble of the real estate market from transmitting to the financial system, and avoid causing harm to the economy.
Fu Jian, director of the Henan Zejin Law Firm, said that according to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law, a person who obtains a loan from a bank or other financial institution by fraudulent means and causes heavy losses to the bank or other financial institution constitutes the crime of fraudulently obtaining a loan. In this case, the "debtor", scalpers, real estate agents, loan intermediaries, etc., formed a chain of interests to maliciously arbitrage bank loans, which will eventually cause losses to the lenders, and are suspected of the crime of fraudulently obtaining loans.
Fu Jian's analysis believes that as an important part of the illegal link, the "professional debtor" knows that he has no ability to repay the loan, but still cooperates with the relevant personnel to defraud the loan, which is not only suspected of committing a crime, but also needs to bear part of the responsibility for repaying the loan. (Lan Xudong, Ji Fang, and Guo Wushu are pseudonyms in the article)
Beijing News reporter | Cheng Yalong
Edit | Gan Hao
Proofreading | Jain