After the platform was launched, criminals lied to the victims to sell and buy, earning nearly 40 yuan per lesson.
Buy and sell online lessons to earn "subsidies", watch out for traps!
Kuang Xue Zhang Yan Cui Dandan
Nowadays, online courses have gradually become a new way for students to learn. Major education platforms have launched a variety of online teaching resources, and teachers become "anchors" online to preach and teach for everyone.
However, the Internet is so deep that some lawbreakers "sell dog meat" and claim to be an online education platform, but actually use "online classes" to conduct fundraising fraud.
Recently, the Procuratorate of the High-tech Zone in Jining City, Shandong Province filed a public prosecution. The defendants Liu, Shen, Yang, and Zhao were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from ten to five years and fined for the crime of fund-raising fraud.
Get involved in online education and use "education subsidies" to absorb funds
In March 2018, Liu, who lives in Xinxian County, Shandong Province, found his friend Shen and said that there is a way to make money and wanted to cooperate with him. In the early stage, one of the "difficult brothers" suffered a loss of 300,000 to 400,000 yuan from telecom fraud, and the other was MLM The organization defrauded 700,000 to 800,000 yuan, and they all urgently needed to repay the debt.
Naturally, Shen would not reject the way of making money, so Liu told him the idea of investing in an online education platform, and the two hit it off.
In their view, Jining is the birthplace of the Confucian and Mencius culture, and has an "innate" advantage in the education industry. After careful consideration, the two chose the company address in Jining.
During the six months from March to August 2018, the two registered a company and applied for a business license in Jining.
After all the preparations were made, the educational App Liu bought from Sichuan was also ready for trial operation after online filing.
On August 22, the platform was officially launched. The "fishing bait" was completed, and it was only waiting for the "fish" to be hooked...
The operating model of this online education platform is very simple. Education is just a cover, and it is true to use high rebate gimmicks to raise funds.
The first is to encourage the victims to register for the "teacher account" to release courses at the original price. Depending on the level of the teacher, the price of a lesson ranges from 400 to 1,200 yuan.
After that, let the same victim register for a "student account" to purchase courses. The early purchase of courses enjoys a 10% "education subsidy", which is then increased to 9.2%. One hour after the transaction is completed, the course fee can be credited to the teacher account, but it takes a week withdraw.
In this way, for the victim, a 400 yuan course can earn nearly 40 yuan as an "education subsidy", and 10 courses can be released a day. No matter how you look at it, it is a steady profit.
But where does the so-called "education subsidy" come from?
According to Liu's account, this platform has no profit point at all. In the early stage, he formed multiple WeChat groups and QQ groups, and publicized their company as a training and education institution in the group. Now joining the group can win education subsidies, and Get your friends Yang and Zhao as "trust", let them play the role of the masses while ensuring that they can earn benefits, send screenshots of the income to the account in the WeChat group, and publish the "stable profit without loss" Remarks set off the atmosphere and attract more people to invest in the platform.
During this period, the companies registered by them have been dumping money, in order to convince potential investors who are holding a wait-and-see attitude. After all, this "jet lag" business model can only rely on constantly pulling people into the group and on the platform Only purchase courses can be maintained.
From explosive profit to crash, only three months
In the beginning, the active members of the group were basically "owners". Gradually, many people saw that they could really make money on this platform and began to rush to buy courses.
As the number of participants continued to increase, their company began to grow, and the "operating model" gradually became clear: Liu actually controls the company’s operations and is responsible for the overall work of the company, and Shen, who is the legal representative and chairman of the company, is responsible for customer information To improve and confirm the payment information for teachers, Yang is responsible for publicity, building relationships, and providing conditions for others to join the group. Zhao is responsible for publicity in the group and follows Liu to enter the payment information.
In October 2018, Liu used the money he earned to buy a luxury car for himself to use to negotiate new business.
Seeing that the company account amount reached more than 5 million yuan, Shen was frightened and wanted to "wash his hands" after dividing a sum of money.
After he informed Liu of his ideas, he was ridiculed for a while, saying that he did not have a long-term vision, and began to conceive a blueprint for the company to open a physical education and training institution in the future.
In order to be able to stabilize Shen, Liu took out a sum of money to pay off part of Shen's debt, which made Shen continue to work.
However, the good times did not last long. In late November of the same year, the platform was attacked by hackers, the number of investors dropped, and platform funds plummeted.
In order to recover the losses, Liu and others immediately launched a new education app and carried out large-scale rebates. However, these practices still did not reverse the situation that the company was on the verge of collapse.
On November 25th, Liu and Shen took out the remaining 600,000 yuan in the company account and spent 40,000 yuan to buy a second-hand car and several mobile phones and mobile phone cards. More than 400,000 yuan went to Liu, and the remaining money was shared by others After running each other.
Just two days before the company’s people went to the building, they were still releasing information about a series of false propaganda activities, such as investment promotion meetings, training meetings, visits to the Confucian Temple, and groundbreaking ceremonies. Liu was still in the group to promote the company’s upcoming Resurgence, encouragement to continue classes and other speeches attract victims to continue to invest.
It was not until December that all groups were disbanded overnight. This scam that relied on the education platform for fraud was revealed. The case caused 32 victims across the country to lose more than 1.4 million yuan.
Illegal absorption of public deposits or fund-raising fraud? Prosecutor's precise characterization
From the investigative stage to the trial, although several defendants confessed the criminal facts of using the App to purchase courseware rebates to absorb funds, they have always argued that they were not subjectively defrauding, and they wanted to open a physical training institution by absorbing funds. This behavior should be characterized as Crime of illegally absorbing public deposits.
The prosecutor handling the case deeply analyzed the case itself, through multiple interrogations of the defendant, combined with all the evidence to give a precise characterization, the core difference between illegal absorption of public deposits and fund-raising fraud is: whether there is an illegal possession purpose.
From a subjective point of view, Liu's behavior was intentional for illegal possession.
First, from the company’s operating model, the company has no other operating activities and no other sources of income to support the so-called “subsidies” to the victims. It is to refund the previous victims’ lesson fees through the lesson fees paid by the victims who purchase the courses later. This model of “returning the old with the new” and “removing the east wall to make up the west wall” is not profitable, so that the company cannot be operated for a long time. The essence is the same as the “Ponzi scheme”; the second is that the defendant buys luxury cars for personal use , After the platform was closed, they bought second-hand cars and fled, squandering the victim's money; third, after the platform was closed, the private branch defrauded the money, absconded with the money, changed mobile phones and mobile phone cards, and hid everywhere.
From an objective perspective, Liu and others used fraudulent means of fabricating facts and concealing the truth.
Use the WeChat group to conduct widespread false propaganda, claiming that the company has a physical training organization; in the WeChat group, publish screenshots of the account and make statements such as "the account is guaranteed". In addition, in the early stage of the establishment of the WeChat group, let internal personnel buy Online lessons, and released a large number of screenshots in the WeChat group to deceive the trust of other victims and defraud them to buy courses into funds; the day before the app crashed, the company was still making false publicity to trick the victims into continuing to invest funds; after the platform was closed, Liu is still in the WeChat group to promote the company's ongoing reorganization and purchase of courseware to reward 400 yuan to encourage the victim to continue to pay, in order to achieve his purpose of continuing to defraud funds.
In fact, Liu and others have no ability to repay the principal and interest. They lure victims with high rebates, and use the idea of taking advantage to lure victims into investing, which is in line with the objective behavioral model of fundraising fraud.
In the end, the court found that the prosecutorial agency's allegations were established and supported it.
After the judgment of the first instance, all defendants appealed.
Recently, the second instance of the case was pronounced, and the court rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
The prosecutor hereby reminds everyone that there are deep fund-raising scams. Any fundraising activities under the guise of "high returns" and "short-term returns" should be paid special attention to. Investors should conduct reasonable financial management through formal channels and do not trust credibility. Investment projects spread by means of group building, so as not to be deceived and cause property losses.