In recent years, the crime of naked chat extortion has become one of the most socially harmful new crimes among the crimes of telecommunications network fraud. The Linzi District Procuratorate of Zibo City, Shandong Province, handled a criminal case of extortion involving naked online chats.
On May 6, the public security organs transferred criminal suspects Zhang and Chen to the Linzi District Procuratorate for review and prosecution on suspicion of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds. Previously, the 26 defendants in the case had already been sentenced by the court. After trial by the court, on March 28, 2023, five defendants, including Wang and Zhu, were sentenced to one year and seven months to four years and six months in prison for committing the crime of extortion, and each was fined 30,000 yuan to 120,000 yuan; On December 26, 21 defendants, including Yang, Li, and Zhao, were sentenced to one year, six months to five years in prison, and fined between 20,000 and 130,000 yuan each for the crimes of extortion, covering up and concealing criminal proceeds and proceeds of criminal gains, aiding information network criminal activities, and illegally crossing the national (border) border. At present, the suspects Liu and Yan are still at large.
"Sexual encounter" naked chat was blackmailed
One night in April 2022, Xiao An, who was in his early 20s, watched a short video, and a video with an account of "It's not easy for one person to work hard" attracted his attention. The girl in the video has a good face and a good figure, Xiao An clicked on the comment area and found that there was a QQ number, so he added the other party as a QQ friend.
After a period of ambiguous chatting, the other party guided Xiao An to download an App and invited Xiao An to have a naked video chat through QQ. Xiao An did not resist the temptation and agreed to the other party's request, but when he was immersed in this "sexual encounter", the video was suddenly hung up, and then, his mobile phone received an MMS message from an unfamiliar number. Xiao An clicked on the MMS message, and the picture in front of him made him sweat coldly, on which were screenshots of the video when he was chatting naked, as well as the contact information of all relatives and friends in his address book. The other party threatened to send screenshots of the naked chat video to Xiao An's relatives and friends, and asked Xiao An to give them money, and Xiao An was extorted 80,800 yuan.
Xiao An realized that this was a blackmail trap and reported the case to the public security organ the next day. After receiving the report, the public security organs quickly launched an investigation.
Unearth the complete chain of crimes
Coincidentally, two similar cases occurred in other parts of Zibo City, and the police found that the same group of people were responsible for the crime. After the three cases were merged, the public security organs conducted an inquest and analysis of the naked chat app used by the three victims, and found that the criminal leader of the case was Liu, and arrested Cai, the registrant of the App server operating company, and Guan Mou, a relevant criminal suspect (the two have been handled in a separate case).
After interrogation, the public security organs believed that it was very likely that it was a criminal gang involving foreign countries, with a clear division of labor and a complex hierarchical structure. Due to the fact that the case involved overseas and the case was serious and complex, the public security organs invited the Linzi District Procuratorate to intervene in advance.
After intervening in the case in advance, the procurator handling the case learned about the case and guided the investigation by reviewing evidence materials and convening a joint meeting of the prosecutor and police. In the course of investigation, the police successively arrested more than 30 criminal suspects such as Wang, Zhu, Yang, Li, and Zhao.
After investigation, it was found that Liu went to the Mengbo Special Economic Zone in Wa State, Myanmar in February 2020, and since June of that year, Liu and others have organized the opening of naked chat sex broadcasting studios in northern Myanmar in order to obtain huge illegal benefits, engaged in naked chat extortion criminal activities, and specifically used video naked chat methods and coercion as the main means to extort victims' property.
Since January 2021, Liu has directed Yang and Yan to develop software that can obtain information such as address books and photo albums on the victim's mobile phones. In the criminal gang, Wang is responsible for maintaining the operation of the software as a key personnel, Zhu and others are responsible for improving and upgrading the software as technicians, Song is a super signature endorsement for the software, Zhao organizes personnel to send extortion text messages to the victims, and Li, Zhang, Chen and others use the virtual currency USDT as a cover to help Liu cover up and conceal the criminal proceeds many times. The criminal gang gradually developed into a criminal group with a complete criminal chain.
On June 23, 2023, the procurator handling the case and the procurator's assistant combed through and drew a map of the clues of the case.
Accurately characterize malign force crimes
During the early intervention phase, the procuratorate held several meetings with the public security organs to discuss the facts of the case, and successively put forward more than 20 supplementary investigation opinions. During the review and prosecution stage, the prosecutor handling the case conducted several discussions on how to characterize the case.
"Judging from the organizational structure of the criminal group, the specific criminal acts carried out, the economic benefits obtained through violations and crimes, and the impact of the group's criminal acts on society, the victims' lives and work, and so forth, whether the criminal group constitutes a criminal organization involving malign forces is the key to the characterization of this case." Si Shujin, deputy chief procurator of the Linzi District Procuratorate, put forward his views on the characterization of the case.
After discussion, the prosecutor found that the members of the criminal group headed by Liu were fixed, the criminal intent was clearly contacted, the hierarchy was obvious, and the division of labor was clear, and the indecent video was used as a threat to demand money from others, and others were also required to borrow money online, causing a heavy psychological and economic burden to the victim and his family; The criminal group has seriously disrupted cyberspace and the real social order, violated the property security of others, and caused a vile social impact, meeting the definition of a malign force organization in the Anti-Organized Crime Law, and the criminal group should be defined as a malign force criminal organization. However, criminal group members such as Wang, Zhu, Yang, Li, and Zhao, in order to obtain illegal benefits, clearly knew that others were using information networks to chat naked with unspecified victims across the country and steal relevant communication information, and used the publication of indecent photos and videos as a threat to carry out criminal activities of extortion, but still organized personnel to provide corresponding services for the crime of extortion, and caused a major social impact, and should be characterized as the main members of the malign forces criminal organization, of which Yang X is the ringleader and Yan X is an important member. Song X and others have less involvement, shorter participation periods, and less assistance, and should not be designated as members of malign forces criminal organizations.
On December 15, 2023, the Linzi District Procuratorate sent personnel to appear in court to support the prosecution.
Since the investigation of the case, the number of victims has reached 82, and the amount involved has reached more than 3.66 million yuan. The Linzi District Procuratorate of Zibo City prosecuted 5 people, including Wang and Zhu, on suspicion of extortion, covering up and concealing criminal proceeds and proceeds of crime, aiding information network criminal activities, and illegally crossing the national (border) border against 21 people, including Yang, Li, and Zhao.
(Source: Procuratorate Daily, Der Spiegel Weekly Edition Author: Guo Shuhe, Liu Xintong)