“
In the end, that's what it says
That desire of oneself is even greater
All the money will be put into it
”
A number of anchors are now "big brothers" in the live broadcast room
Nearly 100 million yuan in rewards turned out to be the proceeds of crime
Li is the anchor of a live broadcast platform with nearly 10 million fans. There is an audience named "Brother Pingsheng" in Li's live broadcast room, and he often gives him large rewards. Li received a total of nearly 50 million yuan from "Brother Pingsheng", and sometimes even received nearly one million yuan in a day or a period of time. And he will return the money to "Brother Pingsheng" in various ways after receiving the reward.
27-year-old Wang is also the anchor of this platform. After getting acquainted with "Brother Pingsheng", Wang accepted a large amount of rewards from him. Like Li, Wang will also return the reward to "Brother Pingsheng". The two also have a close relationship offline and often travel together.
In the past year, Li and Wang, as well as two other anchors, have received nearly 100 million yuan from "Brother Pingsheng", and they have all returned money to "Brother Pingsheng" in various ways. Each anchor has a different proportion of payment, some will return the full amount, and some will return a part of it, and keep a little more for themselves. Even in the later stage, an anchor said in the live broadcast room that if someone is willing to reward him, he can return the full amount.
This "Brother Pingsheng" is actually the chairman of the company involved in the case, and the huge amount of money he rewarded the anchor was all criminal proceeds, in order to clear the stolen money.
After investigation, the police believe that this behavior of the anchor has been suspected of money laundering. In February 2023, under the unified deployment of the Ministry of Public Security, the Shanghai police launched a nationwide operation to close the network of multiple anchors. In this operation, the police arrested nearly 30 people in more than a dozen cities across the country, all of whom were anchors or staff members of a live broadcast platform, and they all accepted large rewards from Yu.
After arriving at the case, these people expressed their willingness to return the bounty they had accepted and to cooperate with the police in continuing to investigate the whereabouts of the funds involved.
Invest millions and lose all your money
Long before investigating the flow of funds in Yu, the police had already received reports that some investors had been defrauded
Ms. Li from Zhejiang runs a gold jewelry store. Due to the booming business, Ms. Li had some spare money on hand and began to get in touch with wealth management products. In 2018, Ms. Li was introduced by her friend Liu Xiaohong (pseudonym) to invest in a project.
Ms. Liu Xiaohong told Ms. Li that a large company was raising funds. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company is responsible for renting the vehicles to some construction parties to obtain rent, and the rent is distributed to customers according to a certain percentage. Ms. Liu assured Ms. Li that investing in the company with her would make a steady profit.
After some investigation and understanding, Ms. Li tried to invest for a period of time, and the principal and interest were received on time according to the time agreed in the contract. In order to make Ms. Li feel more at ease, the salesman friend pulled her into the company's WeChat group, and Ms. Li also got more inside information. As soon as the contract expires, Ms. Li will continue to invest the expired money in the next round. In less than a year, Ms. Li's investment reached 2.89 million yuan.
In August 2020, Ms. Li had an investment of 1.7 million yuan that was about to expire. At this time, Ms. Li found that some employees in the company's WeChat group reported the problem of delayed salary payment. Within a few days, the company's chairman Yu disappeared, and the company also said that it was unable to repay and cash in on the investment.
Mr. Wang from Fujian Province also encountered a similar situation to Ms. Li. In 2018, Mr. Wang also came into contact with this company. After trying to invest and getting a high interest rate, Mr. Wang told his relatives and friends the news. Under Mr. Wang's introduction, relatives and friends also handled an investment contract of nearly 7 million yuan through his hands. However, in August 2020, the sudden disappearance of the company's chairman Yu made Mr. Wang not only lose money, but also be besieged by relatives and friends.
Subsequently, Ms. Li and Mr. Wang reported the case to the police, who quickly found the company's headquarters in Pudong, Shanghai, but the building was already empty. The chairman of the company, Yu, fled abroad, and many senior executives such as the company's vice president were taken away by the police for investigation. After an audit, the police found that the company had no funds to freeze, and the victim's investment was almost lost.
Using fake projects to raise funds
Laundering stolen money through live streaming platforms
Through the collection of evidence in many places, the police found that the company was actually suspected of fund-raising fraud in the name of investment. Under the banner of leasing muck trucks, they illegally raised public funds in more than 100 cities across the country.
After more than a year of operation, the company lied to the public that it was a government-backed new energy company, contracting the transportation of large-scale infrastructure projects in various places. They financed the purchase of cars from the public and promised to give investors dividends in proportion. However, most of their so-called licenses and documents are forged, and many of the items do not exist at all.
After getting the funds, Yu will clear the stolen money by rewarding the live broadcast and then returning the money by the anchor.
The company's executives, He Mou, and others were subsequently prosecuted by the procuratorate on suspicion of illegally absorbing public deposits and other crimes. After a court trial, a number of senior managers of the company were sentenced to 5 to 7 years in prison and fined. Some of the defendants were sentenced to up to 3 years imprisonment with a suspended sentence because the circumstances of the crime were relatively minor and actively compensated the victims for their losses. At the same time, the police intensified the pursuit of the company's chairman Yu.
At present, the judicial authorities are still working on the recovery of stolen goods and losses in the case, and the money laundering method using live broadcast tipping as a means will also be the focus of the police's next investigation.
Popularization time
Q1：
What are the differences between the characteristics of this kind of money laundering case by way of anchor tipping and the previous money laundering crime? Will it be more difficult to strike?
A1：
Compared with traditional money laundering criminal methods such as underground money banks and false investments, money laundering through live streaming is more concealed and more difficult to detect and crack down. We usually think that money laundering crimes are far away from our lives, and it is not difficult to find that money laundering crimes actually happen around us, but it is very confusing to take advantage of familiar scenes under the cloak of legality. If the monitoring is not in place and in time, it is easy to be used by criminals and become a criminal channel for money laundering. This case is typical. The platform anchor Li Mou knew that Yu's funds came from criminal proceeds, and in order to increase his popularity and earn traffic, he also accepted rewards. What's worse is that he transferred the tips to the designated account according to the suspect's instructions. The whole process, on the surface, is a legal act of rewarding the anchor, but in fact, the transfer of criminal funds has been realized behind the scenes, so Li's behavior also constitutes the crime of money laundering. We also found that in the whole process, a relatively complete chain of illegal interests was formed. The upstream crime laundered the funds, the anchor and the company earned traffic, and the platform got a commission, and the interests of all links in this are intertwined and complex, so it has brought many challenges to our public security organs to investigate and solve the case.
Q2：
What are the dangers of money laundering crimes? What will the next measures be taken by the public security organs to crack down on and prevent money laundering crimes?
A2：
Money laundering crime is a very typical service crime, which has a very strong conductivity and expansion. On the one hand, it transfers and conceals criminal proceeds for upstream crimes such as illegal fundraising, telecommunications fraud, and online gambling, accelerating the spread of upstream crimes and seriously infringing on the vital interests of the people. On the other hand, in the process of committing crimes, criminals often use bank accounts and third-party payment tools to make legal payments, resulting in a large amount of illegal funds entering the financial system, which also brings hidden dangers to our country's financial security. In recent years, we have worked closely with the People's Bank of China, foreign exchange administration and other departments to organize and carry out special operations, deployed 10 major campaigns, launched a fierce offensive against various types of money laundering crimes, and cracked a large number of major and influential cases. We will strengthen coordination and cooperation with the People's Bank of China and the foreign exchange regulatory authorities, carry out joint monitoring, joint analysis, joint research and judgment, and joint crackdown, resolutely cut off such illegal funding channels, jointly promote governance at the source, and make every effort to safeguard our country's financial security and financial order.
Visual Design|Song Xiaojun
Editor-in-Chief | Wang Xiumin
Case source|"Today's Statement" "Guarding Economic Security" Special Plan "Behind the Huge Reward"
Reporter | Sun Mingfei and Li Yanjie
Source: CCTV Today's Statement