"Private detectives" investigate the client for cheating on her husband and are prosecuted for allegedly infringing personal information

The Paper's reporter Lu Mei

Code-named "City Hunter", a "private detective" investigating the client's cheating on her husband was planted.

On May 12, The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) learned from the Wenzhou Ouhai District Procuratorate that the "detective" Cao Mou had been prosecuted for suspected crimes of infringing on citizens' personal information. The procuratorate recommended that the court sentence Cao to eight months in prison and a fine.

Cao Mou, born in 1982, was Chinese, registered in Anhui Province, and worked in Wenzhou for many years. He was sentenced to ten months in prison for theft in 2002 and re-offended in 2007 with one year of re-education through labor.

After being released from prison, Cao engaged in advertising promotion work, but it did not go well. In 2020, a friend of his was arrested by the police for violating personal privacy, and he "opened up his thinking", discovered the "way to make money", and became a "private detective".

Cao named himself "City Hunter", and also configured a number of mobile phones, GPS locators, computers and other equipment to promote his business through the network.

In July 2020, the woman xiang found him and hoped that he would investigate her husband's cheating. Cao tracked his husband and lover, obtained the whereabouts, address, etc., and purchased the ID card, driver's license, mobile phone number and other information of the cheating husband and lover through the "hacker" and provided it to Xiang.

When tracking a husband, Cao also pasted a GPS locator on a husband's car, and then took Xiang to the scene. Xiang told the police afterwards that he had followed Cao and saw the scene of her husband and lover cooking and playing together.

These "investigations" of the situation, Cao sold 14,000 yuan.

In February 2021, another woman, Yi Mou, entrusted Cao Mou to also investigate her husband's cheating. Cao got Yi's husband's mobile phone number and identity information, and made a profit of 1500 yuan.

Cao also used the "caution" of "detectives" for collection. When charging the customer, he will take the customer to the small shop on the street, let him scan the small shop collection code to pay, and then trade with the owner in cash. When he trades with the "hacker", he will also "erase the traces of the transaction" by asking strangers to scan the code and then pay in cash offline.

The procuratorate held that Cao violated state regulations by selling citizens' personal information to others, illegally obtaining more than 5,000 yuan, the circumstances were serious, his behavior violated one of article 253 of the Criminal Law, the facts of the crime were clear, the evidence was credible and sufficient, and he should be investigated for criminal responsibility for the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information.

The Paper has learned that according to the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Citizens' Personal Information, "citizens' personal information" refers to all kinds of information recorded electronically or otherwise that can be used alone or in combination with other information to identify the identity of a specific natural person or reflect the activities of a specific natural person, including name, ID card number, communication and communication contact information, address, account password, property status, whereabouts, etc.

The procuratorial organs remind that the evidence obtained by "private detectives" through wiretapping and tracking is illegal, and they should not pin their hopes on private detectives, collect evidence according to law, do not trade information, and do not condone information trading.

Editor-in-Charge: Xie Chunlei

Proofreader: Yijia Xu