"Suction powder", "solid powder", "powder transfer"... The crazy routine of fake financial apps

Fake APP scam routine training content

For a long period of 7 months, 29-year-old Huang Guobing has always believed that he has nodded his back and "can't blame others." Until one day in the WeChat group to question the other party was blocked, he woke up like a dream.

"The money is too important, it's a down payment to buy a house, but the money is gone, and my wife is also seriously ill." On April 18, in a rental house in the southern suburbs, Huang Guobing was remorseful. His only hope now is for the police to help him get the money back from being defrauded.

From April to November last year, Huang Guobing, an engineer in a state-owned enterprise, was induced to download an APP for foreign exchange investment and was defrauded of more than 240,000 yuan.

The police filed a case and found that it turned out that Huang Guobing fell into an elaborate "trap". The APP that fascinated him, from design, production, agency, to powder absorption, recharge, and extraction, has formed a mature industrial chain. By mid-April, the police had arrested 37 suspects, involving more than 3 million yuan. Reporter Shi Chuang Text/Photo

The APP was followed by people speculating on foreign exchange and lost the down payment of 240,000 yuan to buy a house

In late April last year, the stranger "Xinjie" took the initiative to add Huang Guobing's WeChat, asked whether there was any intention to speculate in foreign exchange, and also analyzed the current foreign exchange market.

Since they had never met, at first he did not believe it, after the two exchanged WeChat dozens of times, "Sister Xin" invited him to join a WeChat group, which had "senior analyst Teacher Huang" explain, "She let me see first, don't worry about buying." There are many fans in the group who keep praising the 'performance' and thank teacher Huang for taking them to make a lot of money. I feel as if this is true."

Huang Guobing, who was gradually persuaded, downloaded the APP and registered an account according to the two-dimensional code sent by "Teacher Huang". Having tasted some sweetness, he obeyed "Teacher Huang". "Topping up, buying, and selling are all controlled by the other party at first." Later he did it himself. For months, he was like crazy, not eating or sleeping every night, only staring at his phone or computer.

But he never saw an increase in the funds in the account, but the 240,000 yuan he had worked hard to save for 5 years disappeared little by little. A fund flow shows that he recharged 100,100 in August, 31,000 in September, 54,000 in October, 28,000 in November... And that money was a down payment for him and his wife to buy a house.

Even at this time, Huang Guobing also believes that his investment has failed and "can't blame others." Until mid-November, he wanted to withdraw the remaining little principal, but found that he could not do so. He questioned him in the WeChat group, which he did not expect, he was quickly kicked out of the group, "Sister Xin" and "Teacher Huang" also blocked him, and what surprised him even more was that the account could not be logged in.

"This APP from Huatong Technology, Juxin Capital, Chengyuan Technology, changed the name, can log in, why not now?" After being reminded by others, Huang Guobing suddenly realized that he rushed to the Jieyun Road Branch of the Zhengzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau to report the case.

The victim's funds did not speculate in stocks and foreign exchange all flowed into the third-party private account

With the assistance of the Network Supervision Detachment of the Municipal Bureau, the Technical Investigation Detachment and the Anti-Fraud Center of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, the Jieyun Road Sub-bureau locked the suspects and their footholds through more than two months of groping. On February 21 this year, the police of the special case team arrested Zhang Moutao, Liu Mouji and other 4 suspects near the intersection of the South Third Ring Road of Lianyun Road.

After a surprise trial, some truths about the "Huatong Technology APP" gradually surfaced.

The special case team took the capital flow and information flow as a breakthrough and found that the transaction funds of the "Huatong Technology APP" flowed into the private account. After further investigation, it was found that the platform did not obtain relevant financial transaction qualifications, which was a pure false trading platform.

With the deepening of the investigation step by step, Zhang Dongchen, the "big man" who has been hiding behind the scenes, was exposed.

The 32-year-old Zhang Dongchen owes a lot of foreign debt due to business losses, and some WeChat groups and QQ groups frequently publish some productions and build various apps, such as stocks, gold, foreign exchange and other platform advertisements that have attracted his attention. He spent 8,000 yuan to customize an APP, named "Huatong Technology", changed the name after a period of time, and then developed agents, "the fee is that the customer deposits and withdrawals two points each, and charges another 6% service fee."

In order to avoid risks, they usually do not contact each other, do not ask each other the real situation, and the bank card he withdraws money from the platform is also purchased from the Internet.

Zhang Dongchen said that the funds remitted by the victim to the APP payment channel not only will not enter the regular market, or even not in the victim's account, but directly enter the third-party fund account set up in advance by the platform, completely out of the victim's control. He confessed that "customers on the platform are not free to withdraw funds unless they have been approved by our review."

Four post-90s production and sale of fake trading APPS earned more than 1 million yuan in less than a year

The "Huatong Technology" APP has been dismantled as a fake foreign exchange platform, so who is making and selling such apps?

"If these people do not have a case, the various financial apps they make will continue to flow into various places, and they will also pose a threat and infringement to more people." The police found that the relevant WeChat and Alipay collection QR codes belonged to Jingzhou, Hubei Province.

At the end of March, with the cooperation of Jingzhou police technical investigation and network security, zhengzhou police destroyed 4 dens and arrested 6 suspects, including Liu Moubin and Zhao Moukai.

Liu Zhao and his fellow countrymen were both born in 1990 and graduated from a university in 2014. In 2018, the two of them partnered to open a network technology company in Jingzhou, which is engaged in software development and sales.

"At first, I wanted to develop formal software, but the technology was not enough, and I didn't make money." Liu Moubin said that some customers in the business will consult the business of fake investment platforms such as stocks, gold, foreign exchange, futures and so on, which makes them feel a little moved, and they have a crooked idea. He is the actual operator, Zhao is a technician, and he also pulled his wife Liu Mouping, who also graduated from a university, into the company.

In order to expand their business, they bought more than 200 QQ numbers and dozens of WeChat IDs from the Internet, and then recruited personnel. It is worth mentioning that Liu Mouping, who is responsible for daily management, also brought her twin brother into the company. "After the new recruits are hired, they will be trained and sent a mobile phone and several WeChat accounts and QQ numbers, which can only be used to carry out business and cannot be used to contact relatives and friends."

WeChat groups, QQ groups, Tieba and so on are their promotion and sales channels, and the sales staff once reached as many as 16 people. App production and service fees also range from 3,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan. In less than a year, the company has sold dozens of fake trading platforms such as APPS, covering many cities across the country, with a turnover of 1.5 million yuan, excluding software production costs and expenses, and profits of more than 1 million yuan.

"The biggest illegal profit obtained by the virtual APP trading platform is the 'customer loss fee' (that is, the client's principal)." Huang Xin, captain of the case investigation brigade of the Jieyun Road Sub-bureau, introduced it.

In April, the police detained 27 suspects who used a "Changhe Shengzi APP" to commit fraud, and the gang formulated a set of "scripts" and "corporate military regulations" for training new employees, and found target customers through dating websites, allowing employees to "dress as women" to pull people.

Fake financial apps promise to make steady profits and not lose money, but in fact, they only lose money and do not earn

"This kind of fake financial APP has a certain routine." Huang Xin introduced, for example, "Changhe Shengzi" is generally the salesman responsible for finding customers, first talk about feelings, and then pull into the WeChat group, commonly known as "sucking powder". At the beginning, there will be "analysts" in the group to explain stock knowledge, and there will be "water army" to echo and increase credibility. Customers with spare money who believe in "analysts" and are willing to follow and invest in stocks will be pulled into a new group, called "solid powder". In the new group, "analysts" will slowly change the investment philosophy of shareholders, advocate good market and high returns, and guide investment on the APP, called "turning powder".

"The promise to customers is to make a steady profit and not to lose, in fact, it is only to lose money and not to earn." Because customers lose more, they can earn more. Huang Xin said that after successfully inducing customers to register and open an account, the platform will arrange the so-called "analysts" to provide technical guidance to customers, customers will generally increase capital investment after a small amount of profits in advance, after which "analysts" will mislead customers to trade in the opposite direction of the normal market, and customers often produce greater losses after listening to guidance suggestions, and even burst positions.

In fact, these are just the tip of the iceberg of APP chaos, on April 12, the State Internet Information Office released a message, saying that since December last year, together with relevant departments, special rectification actions have been carried out against apps involving pornography and gambling, malicious programs, illegal games, etc., and 33638 illegal APP models have been shut down and suspended, app chaos has been effectively curbed, and the network ecology has continued to improve.

"It's easy to spot telecom fraud, just don't be tempted by high returns." Zhang Wei, associate professor and doctor of law of Zhengzhou University of Light Industry, said that most of these virtual APP trading platforms have fraud, manipulation of the background, banking transactions and other behaviors, luring investors to take over the order at a high level, the risk is very large, and a large number of investors have been looted. For these investments, we must be cautious.

(Both the victim and the suspect in the article are pseudonyms)