Crime and Punishment of "Disposal Products"
China News Weekly reporter/Yuan Suwen intern/Yu Haoqing
Che Lifeng "disappeared" for two years.
His wife left home, and his sister, Cha Yuzhen, helped take care of the two children.
Whenever the children asked "Where's Dad?", Che Yuzhen hadn't told the truth to the children. She always cried when she talked about her brother, and she didn't want to believe that he was being detained on suspicion of crime.
In July 2020, Che Lifeng was arrested by the police from Dongguan, Guangdong to Kaifeng, Henan, on suspicion of "producing and selling fake and shoddy products".
He used to be a salesperson for Zhuhai Huafeng Paper Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Yunnan Hongta Group, a large multinational paper mill.
These products are also called B-grade products. The quality is unstable, but the price is lower than that of A-grade products. They are mainly supplied to small factories, which reduce costs and produce beverage packaging of some unknown brands.
"Rich people eat good meat, and poor people eat fat." Ren Fujun, Che Lifeng's former "big customer", told China News Weekly.
Ren Fujun once served as the general manager of Kaifeng Yucai Packaging Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yucai Company"), and received the goods from Che Lifeng from 2014 to 2018.
"This is the unspoken rule of the paper industry." He said that, unlike the high standards of Mengniu and Yili packaging, the beverage boxes produced by Yucai Company are of "not so high standard", and the downstream recipients are also small beverage factories, but he stressed that "these are The goods are still in line with the factory standard."
Ren Fujun left Yucai in early 2017, and his successor, Li Xiaojing, thinks differently.
The latter refused to pay Che Lifeng nearly 5 million yuan for the goods, on the grounds that the quality of the goods was not good.
At the end of 2019, Che Lifeng filed a civil lawsuit in Dongguan to demand payment for the goods. When the court had not yet pronounced a verdict, Li Xiaojing called the police in Kaifeng. Later, Che Lifeng was placed under criminal investigation on suspicion of selling fake and shoddy products, and was detained in July 2020. The civil action was therefore suspended.
The Yuwangtai District Procuratorate of Kaifeng City sued, claiming that Che Lifeng "passed the shoddy products" and sold the processed products "pretending to be A-grade products" to Yucai Company, and the amount involved in the case amounted to 7.6 million.
This is a "particularly significant amount" and can be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than 15 years or life imprisonment.
Che Lifeng's defense lawyer Yu Li believes that this case is a criminal case caused by an economic dispute, and the "processed products" are only of "unstable" quality, which does not mean that all of them are unqualified. Most of the processed products have been sold downstream, and the inventory is only a few dozen tons. How to judge the quality of the sold products?
become the ambiguity of the case.
The emergence of this case has sparked controversy over the crime and non-crime of "unspoken rules of the industry".
Opportunities for small factories
Ren Fujun has been in the beverage packaging box industry in Kaifeng, Henan for more than ten years.
In 2007, he invested and established Kaifeng Yucai Plastic Printing Co., Ltd., a liquid food packaging box factory (these affiliated companies are referred to as "Yucai Company"), which mainly produces paper-plastic-aluminum packaging imitating Tetra Pak packaging.
Tetra Pak is a liquid food packaging developed by Sweden's Tetra Pak. Materials include paper, aluminum and plastic, which can increase the shelf life of milk and beverages.
When Ren Fujun invested in the establishment of the factory in 2007, there were already many small paper-plastic-aluminum packaging factories imitating Tetra Pak's packaging process. They imported food packaging paper, aluminum foil and plastic from upstream, and sold their products to small beverage factories downstream.
Small factories have low profits. In order to reduce costs, Ren Fujun looks for cheaper purchase channels.
He went to Yanzhou, Shandong and Rizhao to consult the agents of Sun Paper and Semper Pulp and Paper, they all have channels to buy cheap goods.
Ren Fujun said that these bargains are called "external products", "B-grade products" or "processed products" in the industry, and there are many reasons why they fail to reach normal quality, some are defective, and some are just substandard in size.
In the production of paper-plastic-aluminum packaging, the paper is outside the aluminum foil and is used to print patterns and maintain stiffness.
Ren Fujun said that in large paper mills, the processed products of food paper still meet hygienic standards when they leave the factory.
When his factory purchases goods, it will also test the smoothness and edge water seepage of the paper. The paper-plastic-aluminum packaging that leaves the factory will also undergo self-inspection, and the Quality Supervision Bureau will also conduct random inspections.
In 2014, Ren Fujun began to cooperate with Che Lifeng.
Che Lifeng used to be a salesman of Zhuhai Huafeng Paper Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huafeng Paper"), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zhuhai Hongta Renheng Packaging Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhuhai Hongta"), a large paper factory. subsidiary company.
After Che Lifeng came out of Huafeng Paper to "go it alone", he registered several companies including Guangdong Xinnuo Paper Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinnuo Company") in Dongguan. Buy "Hongta Paper" (that is, the paper produced by Zhuhai Huafeng Paper Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hongta Group), and then sell it to downstream factories.
Ren Fujun said that he had agreed to buy B-grade products from Che Lifeng. "The price of A-grade liquid food packaging paper is about 8,000 yuan per ton, while B-grade products only need about 7,000 yuan, which can be 1,000 yuan cheaper." He It is pointed out that the domestic liquid-wrapped paper circle is not large. Only three or four large factories such as Sun Paper, Semper Pulp and Paper and Zhuhai Hongta are producing base paper upstream, and thirty or forty paper-plastic aluminum companies including Yucai Company are downstream. Packaging box manufacturers have transparent paper prices. In order to reduce costs, there are not many small factories that choose B-grade products and processed products.
A former employee of Zhuhai Huafeng Paper told China News Weekly that some of the "disposal products" that Che Lifeng took to get the goods would be written in the contract as "food liquid wrapping paper".
If "Tetra Pak Returns" is marked, it is the paper returned by the genuine Tetra Pak packaging factory. Since the standard of the Tetra Pak factory is higher than the national standard, such goods may not meet the Tetra Pak standard in subtle indicators, but can still meet the national standard. However, due to being returned, such products will also be sold as "disposal products", and the price is not low.
In addition, some processed products are downgraded to "white coated kraft paper" when they are sold out, which is the "transition paper" or "sleeve-cut paper" produced when the Hongta factory produces liquid packaging paper.
Ren Fujun said that the transition paper is produced from the paper with unstable grammage when the factory machine changes the scale. "For example, 200 grams/square meter of paper is being produced, and it needs to be adjusted to 210 grams/square meter. When the scale transitions, it will be Produce 205, 208 g/m2 paper, these papers are called transition paper." So can transition paper be used?
Although Ren Fujun thought it was acceptable, the above-mentioned former employees of Zhuhai Huafeng Paper believed that in the process of transition paper production, there may be no relevant chemical raw materials added, and the process did not meet the standards, and the quality may not be stable.
The sleeve cutting paper is the leftover material of A-grade products, and the quality is much more stable.
"Some paper mills have a paper machine with a width of 1.5 meters, and the finished product has a width of 1 meter. The extra 50 cm is sleeve-cut paper." Ren Fujun believes that these "are all very good things, and they are also wasted when thrown away. ".
He used an analogy: "The common people make a pair of trousers at home, and scraps are put together to make a cloth pocket. It's the same reason."
From payment disputes to criminal filing
At the beginning of 2017, Ren Fujun left Yucai Company, and Li Xiaojing served as the general manager as his successor to connect procurement.
Zhao Le (pseudonym), a former employee of Che Lifeng’s company, told China News Weekly that since June 2017, Li Xiaojing had verbally asked for credit on the grounds that “the company was in financial difficulties”, and in September 2018 Yucai Company defaulted The payment for goods has accumulated to 5.4 million yuan.
The reporter also learned from Li Xiaojing that Yucai Company has not paid Che Lifeng's payment for 2017-2018.
When Che Lifeng pressed for payment, Li Xiaojing pointed out that the goods had quality problems.
On October 24, 2018, Li Xiaojing obtained 4 samples from the white-faced coated kraft paper in stock and sent them to Shunde Branch (SGS) of SGS Standard Technical Service Company for testing. According to the national recommended standards for food liquid wrapping paper, 4 Only two of the samples met the standard, and the pass rate was 50%.
But Che Lifeng did not agree with the test results.
Zhao Le pointed out that there was no witness from both parties during the sampling and inspection process. "How are these four samples taken? How are they stored? Are they sealed? We don't know."
After a quality dispute, Che Lifeng temporarily suspended delivery.
Zhao Le said that by the end of September 2019, Che Lifeng negotiated with Yucai again, and the two sides agreed to settle the payment within half a year and continue to supply at the same time.
"Che Lifeng was very happy after talking about that time, thinking that the payment for this batch of goods was finally settled." The company's internal invoice he showed showed that after a few months, Che Lifeng sent another letter to Yucai Company. However, after the goods were sent to Kaifeng for more than ten days, Yucai Company still requested to return the goods.
According to bank transfer records, Che Lifeng's company received some transfers from Yucai Company before the civil lawsuit to recover the arrears from the end of 2019 to 2020, and the transfer amount was 100,000 or 200,000 each time.
Zhao Le said that as a dealer, many of Che Lifeng's orders were shipped directly from the paper factory, and they found that during the period when Che Lifeng was returned by Yucai Company, the internal staff of Huafeng Paper provided the goods. The cargo record shows that Yucai Company ordered the same "processing product" through the dealer in Kunshan, that is, white-coated kraft paper.
Knowing that Yucai Company had changed dealers, Che Lifeng believed that "the other party obviously wants to deny it".
So in December 2019, Che Lifeng sued Yucai Company in Dongguan First People's Court for repayment.
Since then, the court has preserved and froze the property of Yucai Company and related personnel.
The civil case of the payment dispute is scheduled for trial on April 14, 2020.
Prior to that, on April 9, Li Xiaojing, on behalf of Yucai Company, went to the Southern Suburbs Police Station of Yuwangtai Branch of Kaifeng Public Security Bureau to report Che Lifeng for producing and selling fake and inferior products. In a civil court in Dongguan a few days later, Yucai Co. Submit the public security's receipt of the case, the third-party test report and other materials to the Dongguan People's Court, saying that the case involves a criminal case and the public security department has accepted it.
After that, Che Lifeng hired a lawyer to go to Kaifeng and issued a legal opinion to the public security department.
Zhao Le recalled that when the lawyer communicated with the public security, he emphasized that the case was related to the dispute over the payment of more than 5 million yuan. In addition, the goods complained by Yucai Company were sent in 2018, and most of the finished products were sold downstream. It is not reasonable to report the case until April 2020.
"The goods that Che Lifeng sent to Yucai Company totaled at least 2,000 tons. According to Yucai Company's feedback, about 20 tons were returned by customers in their warehouse due to quality problems, accounting for only about 1% of the total." Zhao Le revealed that after a preliminary investigation, the public security department believed that it did not constitute a crime and did not file a case.
But the Prosecutor's Office has a different view on the case.
On June 18, 2020, the People's Procuratorate of Yuwangtai District, Kaifeng City issued a "Notice of Requesting Explanation of Reasons for Not Filing a Case" to the public security. , the above-mentioned procuratorate issued a notice to the public security organ, believing that “the person involved in the case, Che Lifeng, was suspected of selling fake and inferior products” and notified the public security bureau to file the case, so on the same day, the Yuwangtai Branch of the Kaifeng Public Security Bureau issued a “Case Filing Decision”.
On the day the case was filed, the public security department confirmed to the Dongguan No. 1 People's Court that the case was suspected of a criminal offense and was under investigation. Therefore, the civil case of payment for goods to be pronounced was suspended.
"Fake and inferior products" controversy
The indictment of the procuratorate alleges that Che Lifeng pretended to be the sales manager of Zhuhai Huafeng Paper, falsely claimed to Yucai Company that the company he controlled was the office of Zhuhai Huafeng Paper Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Yunnan Hongta Group, and forged contracts of Huafeng Paper , official seal and quality inspection seal, arrange employees to forge labels and quality inspection reports, and sell the products processed by Hongta Group as A-level liquid food packaging paper to Yucai Company. The total amount from June 2017 to August 2018 The sales exceeded 1,000 tons, and the sales amount was 7.698 million yuan.
If the procuratorate's charges are established, according to the sentencing standards for the crime of producing and selling fake and shoddy products in the Criminal Law, those who sell more than 2 million yuan shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of 15 years or life imprisonment.
The reporter was informed that the accusation of Che Lifeng's "falsification" mainly came from the words of the reporter Li Xiaojing.
When Li Xiaojing reported the case, he said that at the end of 2019, someone from Hongta Group visited Yucai Company. The other party said that Che Lifeng had resigned from Huafeng Paper, a subsidiary of Hongta in 2014, and was no longer a staff member of Hongta Group, but Che Lifeng told him before that " "Xinnuo Company" is the supply office of Hongta Group. Che Lifeng also visited his company together with the executives of Hongta Group, so he believed that Che Lifeng contacted him as a fake Hongta employee.
But Ren Fujun denied that Che Lifeng had forged his identity. "We are one willing to fight and one to suffer. I only see if the goods are cheap and easy to use." Another person in charge of a beverage packaging box factory in the central and western regions recalled to reporters that because the goods It was usable, and he didn't delve into Che Lifeng's identity.
There is also controversy over whether it is "shoddy".
Ren Fujun emphasized that the real quality of commodities has been reflected in lower prices.
A contract in September 2017 shows that the sales contract signed by Che Lifeng's Xinnuo Company and Yucai Company, the commodity name in the contract is natural food packaging paper, the grade is A, and the price per ton is 6,300 yuan, and some are 7050 yuan.
Zhao Le said that natural food packaging paper is another name for liquid food packaging paper, but the price of grade A packaging paper produced by Hongta Factory at that time was 7,000-7,800 yuan per ton.
"The A-level agreed in the contract between Che Lifeng and Yucai does not represent the A-level of the Hongta Factory. Both parties are well aware of this," he said.
Che Lifeng's defense lawyer Yu Li said that the root of the case lies in whether the "disposal products" sold by Che Lifeng are fake and inferior products, and whether they can be used to produce liquid food packaging products.
Since there are only national recommended standards for food liquid wrapping paper, and no mandatory standards, the definition of these "processed products" is still vague.
The most direct way to determine whether a batch of processed products is qualified is incoming quality inspection.
On May 7, 2020, when the public security department had not yet decided to file the case, the Yuwangtai Branch of Kaifeng Public Security Bureau had retrieved 11 paper samples from Yucai and hired the National Quality Supervision and Testing Center for Paper Products (Dongguan City, Guangdong Province Quality Supervision and Testing Center) Tests were carried out, and 4 of them failed the test.
The unqualified indicators are edge water seepage and internal bond strength, respectively.
However, the last time Che Lifeng shipped to Yucai Company was in 2018. At that time, the guarantee period in the transaction contract was six months, so a batch of expired products was randomly inspected.
"Sampling expired products is unfair to the product itself." An expert from the National Light Industry Paper Quality Supervision and Testing Station told China News Weekly that the internal bond strength is a functional indicator of paper, while the detection of edge water seepage is a test of paper. If the paper is stored for too long, these two indicators will degrade accordingly.
The expert often deals with disputes over paper quality issues. He said that if the downstream processing plants do not recognize the paper quality, they will usually conduct quality inspection of incoming materials immediately after receiving the paper, and then report the problem. If the paper has been processed, When something goes wrong with a product, it can be difficult to determine cause and effect.
Three supplementary evidence
As the former general manager of Yucai Company, Ren Fujun believes that after the current Yucai Company has basically digested the goods supplied by Che Lifeng, and then accuses quality problems in turn, it goes against the integrity of doing business.
"You go to a restaurant to eat and finish all the dishes, in order not to tell Qian Leng that there is something wrong with the dishes, is there such a reason? If Che Lifeng's goods are not of good quality, we make products and sell them, then the downstream factories Isn't it going to be a mess?"
Che Lifeng also sold goods from Hongta Factory to dozens of beverage factories across the country, including some well-known enterprises.
In Anhui, the general manager of a factory of a similar scale to Yucai Company said that he had worked with Che Lifeng for four years to purchase cheaper "processed products" to produce beverage boxes, but the quality of the products basically met the standard.
Che Yuzhen still remembers that on July 17, 2020, case investigators from the southern suburbs of the Yuwangtai Branch of Kaifeng Public Security Bureau went thousands of miles to Che Lifeng's company, "Che Lifeng actively assisted and cooperated with the case."
A few days later, the police made a transcript for Che Lifeng and took away some transaction records.
On July 24, the police took Che Lifeng under criminal detention and took away one of his company's mainframes and personal laptops.
Around New Year's Day in 2021, two of Che Lifeng's employees were also taken away by Kaifeng police.
So far, Che Lifeng has been detained for nearly two years, and the first-instance procedure of the case is still not over.
After being returned by the procuratorate twice for supplementary investigation, on June 29, 2021, the Kaifeng Yuwangtai District People's Procuratorate formally charged Che Lifeng and two employees with the crime of selling fake and shoddy products to the people's court in the district.
On January 13, 2022, the procuratorate proposed that supplementary evidence is needed in this case and applied to the court to postpone the trial.
On March 14, 2022, the court ruled that the trial of this case was suspended due to "irresistible reasons for the epidemic".
Jin Zegang, who has worked in the judicial system for many years, is now the director of the Criminal Law Research Center of Tongji University. He told China News Weekly that according to the Criminal Procedure Law, the maximum number of returns for supplementary investigation is twice, "In judicial practice, If a case is returned to supplementary investigation twice, it is often because the evidence is weak."
Regarding the case of Che Lifeng, he noticed that after returning to the supplementary investigation twice, the procuratorate still brought the case to the court, but after the indictment was brought up again, additional evidence was needed, "This probably shows that the investigators still believe that the case is evidence of guilt. It is not solid, and the heart is not very confident. That is to say, it does not meet the standard of sufficient evidence."
Jin Zegang pointed out that for criminal cases caused by such economic disputes, especially those that are reported after being collected and turned from civil to criminal, judicial organs should fully consider the motives of the debtor to report the case, and should be extra cautious in the process.
On May 16, the reporter called Li Xiaojing to mention the progress of the Che Lifeng case. He replied, "Now the public security organs are working on it." When asked about the quality of the products provided by Che Lifeng, Li Xiaojing sighed and said: "It's inconvenient for me to tell you." After that, he hung up the phone.
"China News Weekly" 2022 Issue 19
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