Unemployed man made 70 million yuan in accounts in 3 months, leading to a tens of billions of transnational cases

The police

collect dozens of funds every day, each with an amount ranging from several hundred to tens of thousands of yuan. In less than 3 months, an unemployed man’s bank account was depleted. As much as 70 million yuan. The Economic Investigation Corps of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau started with some accounts with abnormal fund transactions and spent several months identifying the large-scale cross-border illegal operation of underground banks and casinos behind the scenes.

In January this year, under the guidance of the Ministry of Public Security, the Shanghai police, through international law enforcement cooperation, closed the network simultaneously with Thai law enforcement agencies, and arrested 53 suspects led by Zhong and Bian. More than 130 million yuan in stolen money was recovered. A few days ago, 15 criminal suspects arrested overseas were successively escorted back to Shanghai by the police.

Relevant items seized by the police and involved in the case

Accounted for more than 70 million yuan in 3 months

A cross-border criminal gang emerged behind the unemployed man

In May last year, the Economic Investigation Corps of the Municipal Public Security Bureau discovered during its work that more than 20 bank accounts in the city were suspected of being used to transfer gambling funds: these accounts intensively transferred multiple suspicious funds to several highly overlapping accounts in a short period of time. 's bank account. What was the mystery behind this? The Economic Investigation Corps and the Pudong Branch immediately set up a joint task force to launch an investigation.

By combing through the bank accounts for collection, the man Shao and others came into the police sight. Hu Yifan, a policeman from the Economic Investigation Corps of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, told reporters that Shao is an unemployed person, but the number of entries into his bank account every day ranges from dozens to hundreds, and the amount of funds in each transaction ranges from three to five hundred to over It ranges from 10,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, and the total amount recorded every day is around 500,000 yuan. In less than 3 months, the amount in his bank account reached more than 70 million yuan.

The funds that entered Shao’s account did not stop flowing. Instead, they were decomposed into multiple accounts and then flowed abroad through illegal means such as underground banks.

This also involves an illegal "fourth-party payment platform." The so-called "fourth-party payment platform" refers to an illegal payment channel that has not obtained a national payment and settlement license, usually with the help of a fund exchange platform based on a third-party payment platform. Shao's role is to help these "fourth-party payment platforms" collect payments and provide domestic "transit accounts" for the money laundering activities of overseas criminal gangs. He is called a "Cannon" in the industry.

There are more than 1,200 similar transfer accounts***. By tracing the origins of these accounts and "fourth-party payment platforms", the overseas casinos hiding behind them have emerged. According to police investigations, this gang, headed by Zhong and Bian, spans China and Thailand. It not only opens casinos abroad, but also engages in cross-border laundering and transfer of funds involving gambling and fraud.

Acquire bank cards and sell them to "superiors", earning 1,000 yuan per set

Paradoxically, Shao's account was deactivated after about three months of operation, but his The criminal activity did not stop.

Police investigation found that Shao began to purchase bank card packages for his "superiors", including bank cards, mobile cards and online banking U-shields, and upgraded from a "card farmer" to a "card merchant".

According to the police, the bank card sets purchased by Shao mainly came from relatives and friends around him, and the purchase amount was about 1,000 yuan per set. Shao will not explain the specific purpose to those who sell and lend bank card sets, but will only vaguely say that they will lend them to people in need. In the end, these kits were given by Shao's "superiors" to core members of overseas criminal gangs in Thailand through mailing and human trafficking.

For overseas gangs, after obtaining the real-name bank accounts and other information of domestic personnel, they can actually control these accounts and funds overseas. The funds flowing to these accounts are the gambling funds of domestic gamblers. In addition to bank transfers through the "fourth-party payment platform", there are also direct collections using third-party payment collection codes.

Shao, who has been upgraded to a "card dealer" at this time, can receive a reward of about 1,000 yuan from his "superior" for each set of bank cards he provides. In addition, he can receive a proportional commission on the circulating funds. As of the incident, Shao had made a profit of more than 300,000 yuan.

China-Thailand joint law enforcement destroyed the criminal network, and the capital involved exceeded 10 billion yuan

The role of "card dealer" played by Shao was just a "small role" in this huge criminal gang ". According to the case handling agency, the leader of the gang is Zhong. Starting from the beginning of 2018, he remotely directed Bian and others in Thailand to hire a technical team to build overseas servers, open multiple cross-border illegal online gambling platforms, and formed a division of labor. A clear group operation model.

In order to attract domestic gamblers, they specially recruit and train customer service teams, and attract all kinds of people to participate in online gambling through pornographic websites, pirated video websites, sending spam, etc. For those who intend to participate in gambling, customer service will provide "butler-style" services and guide gamblers step by step in recharging, depositing and returning money.

After that, a specialized "fund operation team" took over, confirmed the gambling fund entry information, and organized the rapid flow of funds through overseas chat software, which also involved "underground banks" engaged in illegal currency exchange. “Those involved in money laundering can get 1.2% to 1.5% of the circulating funds as commission, which is not a small amount.

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In addition to serving its own gambling website, this criminal gang also uses the above methods to launder and transfer the stolen money involved in other upstream crimes such as telecommunications network fraud. As of the incident, the gang has accumulated a total of laundering and transferring illegal funds. More than 10 billion yuan.

Based on preliminary investigation and evidence collection, this gang is involved in various types of crimes. According to relevant legal provisions: Anyone who illegally engages in fund payment and settlement business without approval from the relevant national competent authorities is suspected of illegal business operations. ; Anyone who opens a casino for the purpose of profit shall be suspected of the crime of opening a casino; anyone who organizes citizens of the People's Republic of China to participate in foreign gambling with a huge amount or other serious circumstances shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the crime of opening a casino

< p>According to the case handling agency, the personnel structure of this criminal gang is complex. The domestic personnel involved mainly operate in Guangzhou and Guangxi, and the overseas gang is mainly hiding in Thailand. In January 2022, after mastering the personnel structure and location of the gang, the public security team With the guidance and coordination of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the strong assistance of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand and Thai law enforcement agencies, the Shanghai police and Thai law enforcement agencies launched simultaneous arrest operations. They arrested 53 suspects and seized a large number of items involved in the case from July to July this year. In September, 15 criminal suspects arrested overseas were escorted back to Shanghai by the police.

Currently, 11 suspects arrested in this case were escorted back to Shanghai. The suspect has been arrested by the Shanghai police in accordance with the law on suspicion of illegal business operations and casino opening, and the remaining suspects have been released on bail pending trial in accordance with the law.

What are the characteristics of the "money laundering" methods that are constantly being updated?

With the development of new Internet technologies, various payment technologies and tools have emerged, money laundering criminal methods have been continuously updated, and "illegal financial channels" that provide services for cross-border crimes have also continued to emerge.

What are the trends in "money laundering" criminal activities? According to the Shanghai police, in terms of domestic money laundering, criminals rely on third-party payment technology to build illegal payment platforms, and there are cases of money laundering through score-sharing platforms, fake e-commerce, mismatching of recharge cards, etc. New methods of dismantling and isolating criminal funds and concealing the source of funds; in terms of cross-border transfer of funds, relying on the international circulation and price stability of virtual currencies, virtual game props and other virtual commodities, and using self-determined exchange rates to exchange them with currencies Value-linking, as a medium for illegal exchange transactions between domestic and foreign regions, has led to the emergence of new methods such as recycling and recharging online game tokens for exchange, and using virtual currency transactions to transfer funds across borders, which are more concealed.

At the same time, this type of criminal chain continues to extend upstream and downstream, with complicated and huge capital flows, forming a complete criminal chain. On the demand side, there are illegal payment settlements and cover-ups such as telecommunications fraud, cross-border gambling, and illegal fund-raising. , Upstream criminal gangs that conceal their needs for criminal proceeds will hand over the stolen funds to underground banks for laundering and transfer.

On the supply side, criminal gangs such as underground banks often illegally buy and sell citizens’ personal information, bank cards, etc. The black and gray industry has obtained a large number of personal bank accounts, public accounts of shell companies, etc., and quickly split them up after receiving upstream funds, building nested fund channels to avoid crackdowns and investigations.

In this regard, the police have also continued to increase detection and crackdown efforts, strengthened joint research and judgment on new illegal financial channels, and proactively studied market fluctuations, capital changes and other emerging issues, and jointly responded to the risks of such crimes. challenge and continuously promote source governance. So far, the Shanghai police have launched 13 cross-provincial collaborative cloud crackdowns across the country this year, and have solved more than 100 related criminal cases, arrested more than 250 suspects, and involved more than 70 billion yuan.

Original manuscripts from Jiefang Daily·Shangguan News, reprinting without permission is strictly prohibited

Author: Wu Linhua

WeChat editor: An Tong

Proofreading: Feifei, SYL