Attracting fans and draining, maliciously shouting orders, fast in and fast out...... Recently, the Lanzhou police cracked a particularly large illegal futures case, and the suspect committed fraud in the name of futures trading, which is very concealed and confusing. According to the police, the case caused more than 3,300 investors to lose 224 million yuan.
The police escorted the suspect to Lanzhou. (Photo courtesy of the police of the task force)
Investing in futures makes small profits and big losses, and some people are defrauded of millions of dollars
In March 2023, when the victim Ms. Guan was swiping her mobile phone, she inadvertently saw a financial anchor recommending a certain futures trading software on a short video platform, and believed the false profit results. After downloading the software, Ms. Guan first made a small profit on the trading platform, and then made additional investments, resulting in a loss regardless of whether she bought short or long.
"Unlike other formal trading platforms, this trading platform has a handling fee of up to 200 yuan to 300 yuan." All kinds of suspicious signs made Ms. Guan begin to doubt the authenticity of the platform. After a large loss, she chose to report the crime.
After being moved by the anchor's analysis of "Toutou is the Way", another victim, Ms. Wang, also downloaded the futures trading software and joined the WeChat group. Under the "guidance" of the "experts" in the group, he lost more than 30 yuan in just 6 months. According to her recollection, there will be a high fee for each transaction on the platform, and a delay fee if you don't trade.
In 2023, the Lanzhou police will receive a large number of victim reports, some of whom lost more than 100,000 yuan in less than a month, and some people were defrauded of a total of 2.54 million yuan by the platform. The police immediately set up a special case team to file a case on suspicion of illegal business operation and carry out a comprehensive investigation.
The task force carefully analyzes the data of industry and commerce, taxation, banking, etc., comprehensively uses big data methods to screen and filter, and analyzes the traceability and analysis of the trading platform APP. By retrieving background data, the police found a professional criminal gang composed of behind-the-scenes financiers, fan attraction and drainage, technical support, and fund settlement.
After investigation, the criminal gang purchased software from an information technology company to build a trading platform, purchased futures variety data, and changed the data by writing operation code before publishing, forming a false futures market data K-line chart and time-sharing chart trend.
With the deepening of the investigation, the police found that the criminal gang in this case "dressed in the cloak of spot, using illegal futures as a means to engage in fraud", on the surface, it was illegally engaged in futures trading, but in fact it was a typical fraud case.
In November 2023, the Lanzhou police organized police forces to go to multiple places to arrest at the same time, smashed 15 online platform crime dens, seized computers, hard disks, mobile phones and other crime tools on the spot, took criminal coercive measures against 96 people, froze more than 6,000 yuan of funds involved in the case, and the remaining funds involved in the case are being fully recovered.
A variety of methods to "harvest" victims
According to the police, most of the victims in the case are enthusiasts who usually engage in stock and futures investment. As of the time of the incident, the victims had lost a total of $240 million. Before investors enter the illegal trading platform, the suspect sets up layers of traps and tricks the victim into increasing investment through words.
Trap 1: Use the common trick of fraud to "attract fans and drain traffic".
According to the police, the gang cooperated with some platform promotion companies to attract investors to enter the game, which is known in the industry as "attracting fans and draining traffic", and the method is very similar to the previous crimes of telecommunications network fraud in recent years.
First of all, the suspect attracted investment enthusiasts into the mobile phone live broadcast room, pretending to be a "stock recommendation teacher" to analyze the trend of the stock market and futures market, and gradually promote his own fake futures products, while the team water army interacted and liked it in the live broadcast room. The "stock recommendation teacher" will share false profit charts to further lure victims into fake futures stocks and crude oil analysis groups.
Zhang Xiangyang, a police officer in the task force, said that there were more than 20 people in a group, and only one of them was a victim, and the other members were all fraudsters or trolls, who encouraged each other and induced victims to download and install the trading platform. "The fraud gang will also defraud according to the size of the victim's investment, according to different amount grading strategies such as 500,000 yuan, 1 million yuan, and 2 million yuan." Zhang Xiangyang said.
When smashing the crime den, the police found that a fraudster would control more than a dozen mobile phones at the same time, pretending to be a water army on the Internet to lure investors, and the "mentor" across the wall was in the office, sharing financial experience on the screen.
At the scene of the seizure, the police found that the fraudsters used multiple mobile phones to lure the victims. (Photo courtesy of the police of the task force)
Trap 2: Malicious shouting orders to induce investors to trigger the liquidation line.
Forced liquidation is a technical term in the futures market, and one of the circumstances that triggers forced liquidation is that the client's trading margin is insufficient and is not replenished within the specified time.
How to make the victim lose money quickly on the trading platform and trigger the liquidation line? After gaining trust, the investment "mentors" in the fraud gang will maliciously call out orders, luring victims to trade frequently and make irrational investments. Investors who have huge losses in a short period of time will be forced to liquidate, and some victims "invest in the morning and be liquidated in the afternoon".
Trap 3: Set high handling fees and extension fees.
Wang Zhe, a police officer of the task force, introduced that although the platform claims that the handling fee is 8/10,000, it is actually charged on the basis of 20 times the principal, so that a high handling fee of 320/10,000 will be deducted for each transaction in and out. In addition, in order to force investors to trade fast in and out frequently, the platform has also set a high extension fee, which is charged at 1/10,000 when not trading.
Beware of deceptive scams in the investment market
With the high-pressure crackdown on fraud in the country, many criminal gangs have begun to turn to more deceptive criminal models. The modus operandi of the above-mentioned criminal gangs is extremely deceptive, and the trend data of K-line charts and tick charts all quote data of legitimate futures varieties, which attracts many investors to be deceived.
How should this kind of money-collecting behavior be determined in law with renovation, concealed means, and complicated operation?
Li Wenbo, a lawyer at Shaanxi Vaillant Law Firm, said that the suspect set up a fake futures trading platform, organized people to solicit investors, and tricked others into so-called "transactions" in order to "earn" the victim's high fees and losses as his own "profits", and defrauded money in the name of "futures trading", which met the constitutive elements of the crime of fraud.
In recent years, financial investment scams have shown a rapid development momentum with the help of communication channels such as live webcasts and short videos. Qu Mengwei, a lawyer at Gansu Hengya Law Firm, said that the live broadcast platform has the obligation to monitor, identify and dispose of fraudulent accounts and content, and if the platform fails to fulfill its risk prevention and control responsibilities and causes the masses to be deceived, the relevant departments will investigate their corresponding responsibilities in accordance with the law.
Li Wenbo suggested that the coordination and linkage of network information, market supervision, public security and other departments should be strengthened, and a joint regulatory force should be established to establish a risk research and judgment system including network public opinion monitoring, malicious robot identification and early warning of high-risk activities, and at the same time increase the technical monitoring and identification, research and judgment classification, and disposal response of video (audio) and frequency information, so as to further optimize the Internet ecology.
Anti-fraud experts of the Gansu Branch of the People's Bank of China reminded that investors should also enhance their awareness of self-protection and investment risks, and stay away from illegal futures investment activities. In the face of the "products" and usurious temptations promoted by unknown institutions and personnel, it is necessary to make rational research and judgment, not to believe in the dream of "lying and earning", and not to leave opportunities for criminals.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency Editor: Lv Yanli)