A granary in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, stores about 10,000 tons of grain. What is the concept of 10,000 tons of grain? If calculated on the basis of the amount of grain that each person eats every day, 10,000 tons of grain can meet the needs of a city of 4 million people for five days. However, in June 2023, the Qinhuangdao police received such a report, and nearly 10,000 tons of grain in this grain depot disappeared out of thin air.
Grain deficit grain enterprises reported the case
Start with the purchase and sale process
This is a grain depot located in Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao City, with more than ten granaries. In 2020, a large grain company in Hebei Province rented four grain depots here for grain storage.
In a routine inspection in 2022, the grain company found that there was a loss of nearly 10,000 tons of corn stored in the grain depot. After a preliminary investigation, the task force found that the reported grain company had carried out trade cooperation with a businessman surnamed Guo, and began to buy grain from Guo's company in 2020 and store it in this grain depot. Until the report, the two sides have been cooperating for two years, and now it is found that the grain is in deficit, and the reported grain company is suspected to be related to Guo.
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: We began to find Guo to question him, and Guo claimed that he had indeed carried out in-depth cooperation with grain companies from 2020 to 2022, and then in the process of delivering corn and grain to grain enterprises, he also performed in accordance with the contract.
Grain enterprises generally send "warehouse staff" to the location of the grain depot to supervise the entry and exit of grain and the safe storage of grain. So the police found Gou, the resident clerk of the grain company stationed at the grain depot involved in the case, to understand the situation.
Li Chao, policeman of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao City Public Security Bureau: According to him, there was indeed a deficit in grain storage, and according to his own account, his superiors were aware of these deficits, and some leaders only allowed grain merchants to take away grain after they instructed him.
However, according to the police investigation, no one in the company instructed Gou to do so. Although the people involved in the investigation of the case are all police officers with many years of experience in economic investigation, it is the first time to handle a case in the field of grain.
Through the visit, the police learned that the grain depot has more than 10 granaries, 4 of which are leased to the grain company for its own management. At the grain weighing, the monitoring equipment will record the license plate number in real time to ensure that the same vehicle is in and out of the warehouse, and these conditions will also be automatically entered into the system.
During the visit, some staff members of the grain depot reported to the police that businessman Guo had some unconventional operations in the process of storing grain.
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: After they went into the grain car, they did not put the full load of grain into the warehouse, but repeatedly weighed it in the yard, and there were some special means in the process of weighing, including the driver getting on and off the car, including one person standing on the car, and even carrying large stones to the electronic scale that was being weighed.
Hands and feet on the grain truck
Abnormal operation occurred during warehousing
Why did Guo have to do anything on the grain truck in the normal warehousing process? A series of strange behaviors also increased Guo's suspicion. So the police found several staff members who had worked for Guo to understand the situation.
Hou, once employed by Guo, was responsible for statistical reports and logistics support. In the process of questioning Hou and reviewing the large number of accounts she provided, the police made significant gains.
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: This staff member has to submit two forms to Guo every day, which is what they call Boss Guo, and the content of these two forms is the real data of the daily grain trucks in and out of the warehouse, and the other is the data reported to the system of large grain enterprises every day.
This is a copy of the key piece of evidence, which records the actual amount of grain in storage and the amount of grain reported to the grain enterprise system, which under normal circumstances should be exactly the same, but there is a big discrepancy in the data recorded on this form.
Not only that, but the outbound data is also recorded on this form. In order to avoid related risks, grain companies have clear regulations that the partners who buy grain and sell grain cannot be the same company.
According to this provision, as a supplier, Guo has no right to pull away the grain, but why does the outbound data appear on this form?
Guo played the role of an upstream company to supply grain to grain enterprises, and on the other hand, he played the role of a downstream company to buy grain from grain enterprises. As a result, there is the actual inbound and outbound data on this table, as well as the data reported to the system. At the bottom right of the table, it is clearly stated that the difference in weight is more than 9,000 tons, which is basically the same as the number of damaged grain enterprises.
The other two employees hired by Guo, Zhao and Zhang, also admitted that there was a car circulating weighing in the warehousing process and assisting the warehouse staff to adjust the weighing system. Based on the evidence of the whole case, in July 2023, the police criminally detained grain merchant Guo, warehouse clerk Gou, and three staff members Hou, Zhao, and Zhang on suspicion of contract fraud.
"Grain keepers" become "grain stealing rats"
The clerk guards the theft
The duty of a grain company's warehouse clerk is to guard the first line of defense of food security, but in this case, Gou colluded with grain merchants inside and outside, from a "grain keeper" to a "grain stealing rat".
After arriving at the case, the warehouse clerk Gou explained how he relaxed his management and helped grain merchant Guo to deceive the monitoring system and falsely enter the warehouse. It is understood that after the grain truck is loaded with the electronic scale, the system will automatically identify the license plate number and record it, the purpose is to facilitate the work to avoid manual input, but this has caused difficulties for people who want to counterfeit.
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: So the warehouse clerk thought of other ways to let the workers at the scene help him stand on the roof of the car and adjust the angle of the camera so that the camera could not see the location of the license plate number. It is precisely because the electronic identification device cannot truly enter the real license plate number, so he needs to add the number manually. The manual addition process also gives these criminals some opportunities.
In the past, some grain depot workers reported that they saw someone putting stones on the grain truck or the driver getting on and off the car, etc., what was the purpose?
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: After the fully loaded grain truck passed the pound, the fully loaded grain truck did not enter the warehouse in time, but repeatedly circulated in the compound of the grain depot, the purpose was to load the electronic scale again in a short period of time, and then manually enter the license plate number again. At this time, the weight of this grain truck could not be exactly the same as the weight of the previous grain truck, so in order to avoid this illusion, they used to change the weighing value of each weighing.
In this way, the warehouse clerk Gou colluded with grain merchant Guo inside and outside to create the false impression that a number of grain trucks were in storage, and made grain storage orders and grain right confirmation forms, and falsely reported the method of storing grain to the damaged grain enterprise supervision system, thus obtaining a large amount of grain purchase funds. In the outbound link, Guo's methods are even more simple and rude.
During this period, in order to deceive grain enterprises into remote video inspections of grain depots, Guo also instructed employees to fabricate inventory balances by drawing horizontal rulers and diagonally inserting vertical rulers.
Li Chao, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: In order to meet the video inspection, they used the method of oblique rulering, normally speaking, there must be a gap between the distance of the straight line and the distance of the oblique, and the oblique line is much longer than the straight line.
Does it constitute the crime of contract fraud?
What are the constituent elements?
After Guo, a grain merchant involved in the case, arrived at the case, he always argued that his actions did not constitute a crime. For the public security organs, accurately grasping the boundaries between crime and non-crime, this crime and other crimes, is also a manifestation of equal protection for every market entity.
For quasi-certainty, during the investigation and handling of the case, the public security organs conducted research and judgment on several occasions.
After the criminal suspect Guo arrived at the case, he admitted that he had made false purchases and left the warehouse without authorization, but he also kept arguing that this was because he had an economic dispute with the grain company, and he had no subjective intention to defraud, and his behavior did not constitute a crime.
According to the Criminal Law, the crime of contract fraud refers to "defrauding the property of the other party in the process of signing and performing a contract for the purpose of illegal possession". Specifically, in this case, whether the parties cooperated with the grain enterprises with a trade mentality, and economic disputes arose in the process of cooperation, or whether they subjectively had the "purpose of illegal possession", is an important factor to consider in judging guilt or innocence.
According to Guo's logic, he took the deposit that should have belonged to him. However, according to the police investigation, Guo sold the grain for a profit of more than 25 million yuan, and the deposit was about 5 million yuan, and the remaining more than 20 million Guo argued that he wanted to build a brown rice processing factory to continue to cooperate with grain enterprises, but the grain company said that it had never signed such a contract with Guo.
Not only that, the police also found that several companies actually managed by Guo were operating in debt before cooperating with grain enterprises, and the amount of debt was large. So where did Guo's start-up capital come from?
Shi Lei, police officer of the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of the Shanhaiguan Branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: It is because he borrowed a relatively large amount of money from the grain depot, and then purchased grain and sold it to damaged grain enterprises. This trick is actually commonly known as borrowing chickens to lay eggs.
Combined with the overall circumstances of the case, the police identified Guo's false warehousing as suspected of contract fraud, and the unauthorized pulling of grain as suspected of theft, and the warehouse clerk Gou, the bookkeeper Hou, and the two workers responsible for transporting grain and assisting in the operation of the monitoring system, Zhao and Zhang, were also transferred to the People's Procuratorate of Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao City in November 2023 for review and prosecution on suspicion of contract fraud and theft.
Constant deception
Who opened the door to the "big rats"?
At present, this case is still in the stage of review and prosecution by the procuratorate, and how to determine the conduct of the suspects involved in the case still needs to be reviewed by the procuratorate, and the court will make a judgment in accordance with the litigation procedures. Looking back on the whole case, in the past two years, why was Guo able to deceive again and again? Who opened the door to the granary "Shuo Rat"?
After investigation, Guo made illegal profits of more than 2,500 yuan in this case, and Gou, the resident treasurer, received 50,000 yuan in benefits, and the other three criminal suspects received so-called "high-salary wages" ranging from several thousand to 10,000 yuan per month.
The police learned that Gou did not agree to Guo's request at first, and then he was finally corrupted and co-opted due to family changes and needed money. Now, the big dream is waking up, and it is too late for Gou to regret it.
In the cooperation with grain enterprises, in the first year, Guo used a similar method to pull away nearly 10,000 tons of grain, and after the loss was detected by the grain enterprises, Guo demolished the east wall and filled the hole in the west wall, and the grain enterprises did not continue to investigate, until the second year Guo's capital chain was broken and unable to repay, and the grain companies chose to report the case in desperation.
As the investigation progressed, the police had in-depth exchanges with the company and found some problems with the grain company. For example, in order to prevent being co-opted and corroded, the enterprise has clearly stipulated that two warehousers should be stationed, but in this case, only one person has been on duty for a long time, and there is no one to maintain the monitoring system.
Ni Shiyu, Deputy Head of the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau: In response to this situation, we have also issued a reminder letter to the enterprise and industry supervision departments, and in response to the reminder letter, the regulatory authorities have also actively stated that they will actively rectify the situation, and only the cooperation of the police and enterprises can more effectively prevent the recurrence of such crimes.
At the location of the crime, the grain depot had a similar operating model and business scope to the victim company, and this case also sounded the alarm bell for the company.
Food security is linked to national security and people's lives. The public security organs will continue to crack down on contract fraud, illegal business operations, collusive bidding and other food-related criminal activities in accordance with the law, make every effort to ensure agricultural production, and earnestly safeguard national food security and the vital interests of the people.
Source: CCTV news client