Establishment of "Thrive Company" in Myanmar
Developed and launched the "SoftBank Group" app
Use the "pig killing plate" method to lure
Investing in young and middle-aged women with emotional problems
A total of 121 people were defrauded of more than 2,900 yuan
……
"At present, some cross-border telecommunications network fraud criminals are no longer fighting alone, but setting up companies abroad, organizing others to secretly cross the border, recruiting other criminal gangs to enter together, and using the group operation model to organize and carry out fraudulent activities. On March 12, Song Lanjun, chief prosecutor of the Rencheng District Procuratorate of Jining City, Shandong Province, introduced to reporters the case handled by the procuratorate of Hu forming a large criminal group abroad to carry out cross-border telecommunications network fraud. In February this year, the case was selected as a typical case of the procuratorate's "Punishing Cybercrime in Accordance with Law and Helping the Comprehensive Governance of Cyberspace".
Since October 2021, the Rencheng District Branch of the Jining Municipal Public Security Bureau has submitted 43 criminal suspects to the Rencheng District Procuratorate for approval of arrest in batches, and by the end of 2023, the court has made a final ruling, which lasted more than two years, and the case was finally settled. The court sentenced Hu to 20 years in prison and a fine of 3.05 million yuan for the crimes of fraud, organizing others to illegally cross the border, and illegally crossing the border, and sentenced the remaining 42 defendants to fixed-term imprisonment of 2 years and 4 months to 19 years, and a concurrent fine of 30,000 yuan to 700,000 yuan each. Order the victim's economic losses to be restituted.
After becoming a lover to gain trust
Invite her to invest
"I want to report the case, I was cheated of money...... "On August 23, 2021, Wang, who lives in Jining City, came to the public security organ to report the case, saying that he was defrauded of more than 90 yuan in online investment and financial management.
After understanding, Wang's message under a music software song was commented by a person with an account named "Mr. Tiger is a little sweet", and then the two added and followed each other's WeChat and short video accounts, and began to chat as ordinary friends. After a period of greeting, the other party launched a fierce "pursuit" of Wang, and after developing into a lover relationship and gaining his trust, he recommended an investment and wealth management platform called "SoftBank Group" to induce Wang to invest. A few days later, Wang realized that he had been deceived when he found that he could not withdraw money.
The next day, the public security organs filed a case for investigation, and after research, judgment and analysis, it was determined that the telecommunications network fraud criminal group involved in the case was located in Myanmar. The Rencheng District Procuratorate was invited to intervene in advance in accordance with the law, guide the public security organs to investigate and collect evidence, and make suggestions on the direction of evidence collection, evidence collection requirements, procedural norms, and other aspects.
From September 2021 to May 2022, the public security organs arrested criminal suspects one after another. From November 2021 to February 2023, the Rencheng District Procuratorate made a decision to approve the arrest of 43 criminal suspects in batches in accordance with the law, and repeatedly consulted with the public security organs to analyze the case, put forward an outline for continuing the investigation, and recommended that the investigation work should be carried out on issues such as the organizational structure, management system, and the status and role of each criminal suspect in the telecommunications network fraud criminal group, and at the same time strengthen the investigation of the process of criminal suspects smuggling out of the country, and comprehensively clarify related crimes. With the deepening of the investigation by the public security organs, a case of cross-border telecommunications network fraud has surfaced.
Target locking
Young and middle-aged women with emotional problems
In 2019, Hu failed in business and suffered serious losses, and then got in touch with fraudsters in Myanmar and began to learn about investment and financial fraud.
At the end of March 2020, Hu and others smuggled to Myanmar and began to carry out telecommunications network fraud activities against citizens in the mainland, and gathered people by luring them with high salaries and introducing acquaintances, and gradually formed a telecommunications network fraud criminal gang headed by him.
In November of the same year, Hu established a "prosperous company" in the Wa State region of Myanmar, developed an online "SoftBank Group" investment and wealth management platform, and strengthened the criminal organization by absorbing others and recruiting multiple criminal gangs to enter the rented crime venues, and uniformly purchased and provided computers, mobile phones, social software accounts and other crime tools, hired local security guards to restrict the entry and exit of members, clarified the reward and punishment system, and uniformly paid money laundering fees, and gradually developed into a telecommunications network fraud criminal group with clear hierarchies, clear division of labor, and many members.
The telecommunications network fraud criminal group implements a corporatized management model, with five levels: boss, director, agent, team leader, and team members, and several groups such as technical group, direct sales group, and agency group, and uses the method of "killing pigs" to carry out fraudulent activities. As the boss, Hu is responsible for the management of the entire criminal group, clarifying the indicators of the crime task, and adopting methods such as teaching, practical teaching, and "the old man leading the newcomer" to improve the fraud skills of the team members.
After investigation, the public security organs found that in order to successfully defraud the victims of money, the members of the criminal group divided labor and cooperated among themselves, and adopted an assembly-line fraud model. Among them, the drainage personnel used fictitious successful male identities to screen young and middle-aged women with certain economic conditions and frustrated feelings on short video and dating platforms as targets for accosting and chatting.
On October 9, 2021, Hu was arrested and brought to justice. After he arrived at the case, he confessed that the reason why he chose young and middle-aged women as the targets of the crime was that, on the one hand, most of the members of the criminal group were men, and it was easy to take on the role of chatting with women, and there were more topics, which was convenient for sending voice messages or making phone calls; on the other hand, because most of the women who often commented and left messages under emotional online messages, videos, and songs had emotional problems or were looking for psychological comfort on the Internet, and the psychological defense line was easier to break down and it was easier to win trust.
After establishing contact with the victim, the member with strong fraud ability will act as a specific trader, add the victim's WeChat and QQ as friends, cultivate feelings in the name of talking about boyfriends and girlfriends, and wait for the opportunity to grasp the victim's real economic and property status. After confirming the relationship between lovers, brothers and sisters, the trader induces the victim to change the chat tool, lures the other party to log in to the "SoftBank Group" platform in the name of making money through investment, and tricks the victim into investing by providing inside information and high interest returns.
The "Commodity Quotes" module of the "SoftBank Group" platform displays the wealth management products available for purchase and the price trend chart of each product, including false product information such as "new energy", "artificial intelligence", "Ethereum", and "Bitcoin".
"Among the 121 victims, the amount of defrauded ranged from eight or nine thousand yuan to several million yuan, and the common point was that the victims' awareness of safety precautions was weak, and they wanted to eat 'sweet pies' and stepped on the 'money trap', and finally fell deeper and deeper, and only found out that it was too late when they woke up. On March 12, Chen Peng, a prosecutor of the Second Procuratorate Department of the Chengcheng District Procuratorate, said in an interview with reporters that after the public security organs commissioned an accounting firm to audit the victim's economic losses, it was found that the victim recharged more than 3,100 yuan on the platform, and only more than 190 yuan was successfully withdrawn.
According to Hu's confession, in order to make the victim trust the "SoftBank Group" platform and achieve the purpose of defrauding more money, they asked the team members to recharge only 500 yuan to 1,000 yuan when tricking the victim into buying a wealth management product for the first time, giving at least 20% of the income, and allowing the victim to withdraw money smoothly two or three times. Activities such as recharging membership and other activities that increase the return on investment and fool the victim into increasing the amount of recharge. When the victim wants to withdraw again, they refuse to withdraw on the pretext that the bank card number is entered incorrectly, the account is frozen and the deposit needs to be unblocked, etc., until the victim is really unable to continue to recharge or finds that he has been cheated, and then he will stop the fraud.
In addition, in order to launder the fraudulent funds, Hu cooperated with a local "money laundering" company in Myanmar. After the "money laundering" ended, Hu divided and distributed wages and rewards in accordance with the agreed proportions.
Quickly clarify the criminal context of the gang
The prosecutors convened a joint meeting to discuss the facts of the case.
The prosecutor handling the case found through reading the case file in the early intervention stage that the criminal group had a large number of personnel, strict internal hierarchies, and a clear division of labor, but the insiders did not know each other's true identities, all of them used code names to call each other, the chat software account was purchased from an "account merchant" on the Internet, and the photos and identity documents used to package the successful man's identity were also "moved" or forged online, and it was extremely difficult to accurately determine the facts of each criminal suspect's crime.
To this end, the procuratorate suggested that the public security organs promptly extract and fix the data of the computers and mobile phones involved in the case, and let the criminal suspects cross-identify the code name, the account number used in the fraud, the victim's account and other information.
In the review and prosecution stage, the Rencheng District Procuratorate combined a large amount of objective evidence such as the confessions of the criminal suspects, chat records, and victims' statements, adhered to the principle of consistency between subjectivity and objectivity, and determined the codes of the 43 criminal suspects one by one, and linked the 121 victims to specific fraud teams and perpetrators, so as to quickly clarify the criminal context of each criminal suspect. At the same time, it was also ascertained that from March 2020 to March 2021, Hu and 26 others had ganged up to smuggle from the mainland to Myanmar, and from May 2020 to March 2021, Hu and 4 others had organized 23 people to smuggle from the mainland to Myanmar.
In order to strictly crack down on cross-border telecommunications network fraud in accordance with the law, starting from August 12, 2022, the Rencheng District Procuratorate has prosecuted 43 criminal suspects in the case to the court on suspicion of fraud, organizing others to illegally cross the border, and illegally crossing the border, and determined that Hu is the ringleader of the criminal group.
On October 21, 2023, the court made a first-instance judgment after trial, and 43 people, including the defendant Hu, were sentenced to two years and four months to twenty years in prison. After the verdict, some of the defendants appealed against the verdict. On December 29 of the same year, the Jining Intermediate People's Court rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Source: Procuratorate Daily, Spiegel Weekly, WeChat public account of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Zhouning County People's Procuratorate