Xinhua News Agency, Xi’an, August 26th, title: The scam behind "excellent companies": 70,000 "pheasant" selections
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters Li Hao and Sun Zhenghao
The company was "registered" to participate in the free "excellent company" selection activity. In the "you chase me" voting competition, the company was induced to spend money to buy votes to improve rankings. The more money was spent, the more money was spent, and finally a useless "pheasant" "Medal.
The police in Huayin City, Shaanxi Province recently uncovered a new type of telecommunications network fraud. The funds involved in the case are initially estimated to exceed 500 million yuan.
This case revealed the secret of a "pheasant" selection scam that started in 2018 and has victimized companies all over the country.
Fall into the "Pheasant" selection trap for "honor"
Hao Zhanrong, the person in charge of a cleaning company in Huayin City, suddenly received a request to add a friend on WeChat from a stranger.
After that, the other party sent him a voting link, showing that his company was selected as an excellent cleaning company in Huayin City.
"We didn't sign up, which was a bit strange. But because the company still values honor, it pulled relatives, friends, and employees to vote, and the ranking went up and down." Hao Zhanrong said that when he was worried about falling behind in votes, someone contacted him and said yes. Spend money to buy tickets, the asking price is 100 yuan for 1000 tickets.
Later, the money was spent more and more, 100 yuan, 200 yuan, 500 yuan, 1,000 yuan, and finally spent 30,000 yuan but did not enter the top ten.
Realizing that he might be deceived, Hao Zhanrong reported the situation to the Huayin City Public Security Bureau.
According to Liu Shengde, head of the Internet Security Brigade of the Huayin City Public Security Bureau, the police found that the voting activity was suspicious: the initiator of the voting was called "Huirong Famous Enterprise", not an industry authority or industry association, and the voting website used overseas domain name.
All companies are passively participating in the election, and they have not registered at all in advance.
The selection activities cover a wide range, including almost all industries that can be found on the Internet, and are held quite frequently.
What's even more strange is that in the voting activity called Huayin Cleaning Outstanding Enterprises, the two top ten companies only applied for business licenses, and they didn't even have office locations or employees.
Through a large number of police investigations and evidence collection, a telecommunications network fraud group that used "pheasant" selection activities to induce companies to pay for votes and spend money to buy honors gradually emerged.
The Huayin police destroyed 5 criminal dens, controlled 590 people involved in the crime, and seized more than 600 computer hosts and 1,500 mobile phones.
Up to now, criminal coercive measures have been taken against 152 people, and 420 million yuan of funds involved in the case have been frozen.
Zhang Tao, head of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Huayin City Public Security Bureau, said that the current fixed evidence shows that the victimized enterprises are almost in all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in the country, and the funds involved in the case are initially estimated to be 580 million yuan.
More than 70,000 selections, acting as a full set
In handling the case, the police found that this online fraud gang showed specialization and group characteristics. The criminal suspects were well versed in the psychology of some companies chasing honor, and under the guise of holding selection activities, despite long-term crimes and many victims, they have always been at large.
According to the suspect's account, since 2018, they have registered companies in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang and other places, and gradually formed a full-chain fraud system from platform construction, event operation to online promotion.
Shanzhou Network Company and Orange Bud Network Company are responsible for the design of voting websites; Golden Horn Network Company is responsible for obtaining enterprise information in the same industry in a certain area through search, Tianyancha, Baidu and other methods, and fill in the designed platform webpage. Carrying out false voting activities; Dianchuang Network Company, located in Zhengzhou, tried to contact these companies again, sending voting links through WeChat, and using the edited scripts to trick companies into participating in the activities.
After the companies participated in the voting, the fraud gangs used various methods to imply that the companies can pay for the votes to obtain honor, and the unit price of a ticket is only a dime.
The audit department in the gang specializes in the ticket purchase business. If the company searches the Internet to find a way to swipe the ticket, it will eventually lead to the fraud gang in the "ticket swipe circle".
Zhang Tao said that the police have found at least 35 ticketing agents in the case.
These agents are divided into two levels. The first-level agents can directly contact the scam gang headquarters, and the second-level agents only contact the first-level agents, and they have no right to change tickets.
The first-level agent can change the ticket from the background.
Five points are deducted for each level, and 90% of the money will go to the fraud gang headquarters.
At the same time, some other people in the scam gang kept their eyes on the screen in the background, and made the deceived company more and more trapped by manual ticket adjustment.
Xiaolan (a pseudonym), the person in charge of the fraud gang's vote adjustment, explained that in the backstage of the company's system, you can see which ones are real votes and which ones are paid for tickets; once a company passes the fee to scan the votes, these companies will become the focus of fraud.
Acting to do a full set.
If a company buys more than 80,000 tickets, it is possible to enter the top ten. After the so-called selection activity is over, the fraud gang will mail customized trophies, medals, and certificates.
The police found that the scam group had orders for medals made by one company in the order of millions of yuan, which shows that the number of companies that have been victimized has reached millions of dollars.
According to the currently available evidence, there are more than 70,000 selection activities organized by fraud gangs.
Online selection urgently needs to strengthen supervision
The police and experts of the interviewed task force told reporters that in recent years, various voting activities and selection activities on the Internet have been numerous, and there are multiple governance shortcomings and blind spots.
Sun Jian, Director of the Investigation Division I of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Public Security Department of Shaanxi Province, said that a large number of similar online platforms and voting activities lack pre-review and filing procedures, and the relevant laws and regulations are not complete. As a result, the telecommunications network fraud is often solved by the police after the incident. The way is "to the bottom".
Some platforms lack supervision of online selection activities, and some have even participated in illegal activities such as paid ticket changes.
Sun Jian believes that the cybersecurity and informatization and market supervision departments should form a joint force to strengthen the supervision of industry-based and commercial voting activities, and ensure that they are well controlled from the source.
In addition, all kinds of cloud server providers for renting and lending should also perform their duties to supervise the legality of such activities. After the relevant departments improve the filing mechanism, the cloud server providers must actively verify whether they have relevant filings.
Sun Haoping, an instructor of the Internet Security Brigade of the Huayin Public Security Bureau, believes that for industry-based voting activities, the organizer must be a qualified unit or industry association.
The police also reminded that whether companies or individuals participate in some commercial voting activities, they must fully screen the sponsor’s qualifications, selection process, selection rules, and related documents to ensure their legitimacy and authority.
At the same time, in the process of participation, the violations of ticket adjustment, payment and ticket purchase were resolutely resisted, and the report was reported in a timely manner.