Preface
Have you heard the story of Chaoshan, which was one of China's first special economic zones, but it's also a place full of darkness.
In the 90s of the last century, tax evasion, tax fraud and other illegal activities in the Chaoshan area were repeatedly prohibited, seriously damaging national interests. The central government sent a supervision team to investigate, and after arduous evidence collection, key evidence was finally found.
However, on the eve of leaving Chaoshan, the supervision team suffered an accident and a fire killed two members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. At the last moment of their lives, they were still clinging to the tin box in their arms.
This box hides the secret of a city worth 32.3 billion.
After investigation, the incident that caused widespread discussion was finally concluded. However, the fire also destroyed the future of a special district.
A fire that shook the nation
At the turn of the millennium, a fire broke out in Shantou that shocked the whole country.
At about 4:40 a.m. on July 15, 2000, it was the time when the night was quiet and the deepest time to sleep.
Zhang Jiankun, a cadre of the Radio, Film and Television Bureau on the third floor of the Shantou State Guest House, was awakened by thick smoke. The wallpaper in the room had turned black, and he and his colleagues quickly fled. In the smoke, chaotic tenants screamed and rushed, trying to find an exit. Someone who returns to the smoke because he forgot something important is mistaken for greed for money, but in fact he is looking for something important that is worth guarding with his life.
Zhang Jiankun and his colleagues crowded to the corridor window and called for help. The fire spread to the second floor, and they were faced with a life-or-death decision. Eventually, Zhang Jiankun jumped out of the window and crawled out in severe pain. Before he fell unconscious, a waitress dragged him out.
However, not all colleagues are so lucky. One of them fell to his death on the rockery, and the other was pierced by steel bars and died on the spot before he could wait for an ambulance.
The police and firefighters who arrived found that two people were missing when they counted the numbers. After the fire was extinguished, they found two bodies unrecognizable in front of the bathroom door on the third floor. There is a box of investigation materials in the bathroom. The deceased were two members of the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection's task force, who used their lives to protect the evidence in the smuggling case.
They are Zhou Ming, section chief of the General Office of the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Zhang Zhengliang, a deputy division-level discipline inspector of the First Office of the Guangdong Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.
The other members of the task force are also designated as case investigation elites. They were involved in the Zhanjiang smuggling case, and were later transferred to Shantou, where they were sent to Xiamen to investigate the Yuanhua Group smuggling case. Judging from the deployment of personnel and the scale of investigation and handling, great importance has been attached to the smuggling case in Shantou. The then prime minister demanded that he not leave Shantou until the facts of the case were clarified.
The task force has been stationed in Shantou for more than a year because of the complicated relationship between the local smuggling syndicate and the exclusion of foreigners in the Chaoshan area. The fire broke out in a state guest house dedicated to the accommodation of cadres, and the day of the incident was the day of the transfer of case materials.
The day before, a radio and television colleague checked in. If the fire is man-made, the target may be the Commission for Discipline Inspection or Radio and Television. The motive may be to prevent the Commission from investigating influential interest groups or out of personal vendettas. Although the Internet was not developed at that time, the "Fire Burning Qincha Case" still attracted widespread attention.
Get to the bottom of it
The two members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection who bravely sacrificed their lives in the raging fire, one of them was Zhou Ming, and the other was Zhang Zhengliang, who resolutely returned in the process of escape, just to rescue important items.
At that time, there was still a way to live, but at the moment of life and death, they resolutely broke through the smoke, returned to the room where the flames were raging, and tried their best to transfer the full set of key materials carrying the hard work of the task force for more than a year to the sink in the bathroom, so that they could survive.
This precious information is not only the crystallization of the painstaking efforts of the special case team, but also the key evidence related to major cases. Their persistence on the brink of life and death allowed these materials to be quickly moved to a safe location at the beginning of the fire, and their value was preserved.
When the prime minister heard the news, he was furious and ordered a thorough investigation of the matter. He pointed out that such an act is tantamount to openly trampling on the law of the land and challenging justice and justice! Today, a month later, a working group with the code name "[807]" has entered the Chaoshan area.
Compared with the original task force, the working group has gathered elite soldiers from 13 core departments, including the State Administration of Taxation, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Supervision, and the Ministry of Finance, and its professional depth and resource allocation have reached a higher level.
They shouldered a heavy responsibility, and based on the core evidence left by the task force, they pointed directly to the complex tax issues in Shantou. At the same time, the top level of the State Council personally called the People's Armed Police Force to stress the importance of giving full support to the work of the working group and ensuring the security of its premises. This deployment undoubtedly sends a firm signal: for the strange fire a month ago, history must not be allowed to repeat itself!
At this moment, a huge cadre team and elite armed police forces have gathered together, totaling more than 1,000 people, and both the investigation efficiency and deterrence have reached their peak. While the righteous army was ready to go, the moths in the dark corners also smelled the crisis and began to quietly brew a counterattack. A fierce battle between light and darkness is about to start in this land......
Arrested
Under the precise command of the "807" task force, thousands of armed police soldiers and more than 1,200 public security officers joined hands with 64 elite arrest teams to launch a nationwide crackdown on VAT invoice crimes in the Chaoshan region.
This thunderous operation not only effectively deterred lawbreakers, but also marked the official beginning of the mainland's campaign to crack down on import and export tax fraud on an unprecedented scale since the founding of New China, and made the "No. 1 major tax fraud case in the Republic" that has attracted worldwide attention come to light.
Before the operation was launched, all the combatants were secretly transferred from other places and handed over all communication equipment, and the specific identity of the target was unknown. Those involved include not only secretaries, mayors, and other local dignitaries, but also responsible persons of key departments such as customs, industry and commerce, taxation, and banking, who are colluding with criminal syndicates and openly involved in smuggling and tax fraud.
In order to accurately crack down on the VAT invoice criminal gangs, the working group carefully planned and implemented two special arrest operations - "Operation Typhoon" and "Operation Full Moon", which were like two heavy punches, directly hitting the core of the crime.
As the name suggests, Operation Typhoon leveraged the power of nature to thunder. When a tropical storm swept across the land of Chaoshan, the wind swept through the torrential rain, as if it wanted to cleanse the world of all evil.
The 200 mighty officers and men of the armed police worked closely with the Shantou City public security organs and were precisely deployed into 22 combat units, like a sharp sword unsheathed, launching a rapid assault on the target area. The doors of the luxurious residential buildings burst open under the iron hooves, and the criminals, still immersed in the dream of crime, were caught off guard by the cold handcuffs and had nowhere to hide.
The "Full Moon Operation" cleverly used psychological tactics to quietly attack during the Mid-Autumn Festival. At this time, the criminals are immersed in the illusion of family reunion, raising their glasses and talking about it, completely unaware of the doom. In an instant, the seven-story luxury small western-style building was completely sealed off by the police, and even the fierce wolf dogs guarding the courtyard were subdued to the ground. On the night of the reunion, under the moonlight, there is nowhere to hide the sin.
During the operation, a cunning man tried to escape by quietly climbing the window edge and absconding along the water pipe in the outer wall. However, the experienced captain of the team was quick and jumped into the air to knock him down, and the criminal screamed in terror and had to be captured. In addition, there is also a suspect who thought that he could hide the pigsty to hide the world, but he could not escape the police's strict dragnet search, and finally had nothing to hide.
Whether it is a cunning boss hiding in the depths of his crimes, or a little minion hiding in a dark corner, there is no escape from the justice of the task force and the police. Those lawless officials who have tried to shield and condone them will also not escape justice.
After more than 500 days of in-depth investigation, the truth about the long-standing and complicated tax fraud in Shantou has finally been revealed. The high-profile Shantou tax fraud case has come to a successful conclusion.
The judicial system of Guangdong Province attached great importance to this case, and the Shantou Intermediate People's Court and the Jieyang Intermediate People's Court worked together to make a fair ruling on the 16 cases involving the false issuance of special VAT invoices.
Among them, 20 natural person defendants and 7 unit defendants were severely punished by law. In addition, the investigation and punishment of those involved in the case in Chaoyang and Puning has also followed, with 19 people sentenced to death, and a large number of people have been sentenced to life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment.
According to preliminary verification, the criminal gang involved in the case falsely issued VAT invoices amounting to 32.3 billion yuan, and illegally defrauded the state of 4.2 billion yuan in taxes. This figure not only set a record high, but its scale even exceeded the annual GDP of Zhuhai in 2000 (33.592 billion yuan).
Through illegal means, criminals are equivalent to creating a city's economic aggregate out of thin air, and its severity and social impact are so severe that it is called the "No. 1 Tax Case of the Republic".
However, although the case has been solved, its far-reaching impact has not dissipated. On the contrary, the shocking effect of the "First Tax Case" was like a strong earthquake, which instantly reduced Shantou, which had huge development potential, into a "city of decline" in the eyes of everyone, and the city's image and investment environment suffered a serious blow.
This case warns us that we must maintain a zero-tolerance attitude towards economic crimes and severely crack down on all kinds of tax fraud, so as to maintain the order of the market economy, ensure the country's financial security, and at the same time escort the healthy development of the local economy and society.