Illegal purchase and sale of wild animal products involved more than 100 million yuan
A Beijing pharmaceutical company was fined 2 million yuan and 7 defendants were sentenced
□ Our reporter Zhang Xuehong
In just a few years, a Beijing pharmaceutical company used methods such as fictitious shares of other people’s pangolin tablets, false mergers and acquisitions, to defraud the administrative license of the wildlife authority, and at the same time forged a large number of wild protection signs, illegally purchased and sold wild animal products, and the value of the case was more than 100 million yuan.
On May 11, Beijing’s first case of a formal pharmaceutical company defrauding an administrative license to illegally purchase and sell rare and endangered wild animal products was publicly sentenced.
The People’s Court of Xicheng District, Beijing sentenced the defendant to a Beijing pharmaceutical company a fine of 2 million yuan for illegally purchasing and selling precious and endangered wild animal products, sentenced 7 defendants to imprisonment ranging from 2 to 12 years, and fined them. It ranges from 20,000 yuan to 120,000 yuan.
Due to the significant social impact of the case, during the trial, Zhao Wensheng, the deputy procurator of the Xicheng District People’s Procuratorate, appeared in court to support the prosecution. The Xicheng Court formed a seven-person collegiate panel with Vice President Wang Qi as the presiding judge to hear the case.
1491 kilograms of nail tablets seized in the basement of the villa
In this case, a Beijing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a pharmaceutical company involved in the case, was established in 2011, and its business scope includes packaging and processing Chinese herbal medicines and wholesale medicines.
The court found that between 2016 and 2019, the pharmaceutical company used methods such as forged physical shares, false mergers and acquisitions to defraud the wildlife authorities to obtain administrative licenses, forged a large number of special logos for wildlife products, and illegally acquired tens of thousands of kilograms of pangolins. Films and antelope horn products were "washed white" and resold for profit. It was suspected of illegally buying and selling pangolin slices and antelope horns, two precious and endangered wild animal products.
According to the investigator, the investigation of the case originated from 1,491 kilograms of pangolin slices hidden in the basement of the villa.
In May 2019, Beijing Forest Public Security received a report from the public that someone had secretly concealed pangolin pieces in a villa in Daxing District.
After receiving the police, the police recovered a large number of suspected nail pieces in the basement of the reported villa.
After on-site inspection and judicial appraisal, the above-mentioned items are all pangolin pieces, belonging to Appendix I species of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, with a total weight of 1491 kg.
On the same day, the police arrested Ding Moumou who was living in the villa, but he denied that the nails were related to him, saying that the villa was rented and had no knowledge of the nails in the basement.
According to Shi Liang, one of the undertakers of the case, the First Procuratorate of the Xicheng District Procuratorate, the case is under the jurisdiction of the Xicheng District Procuratorate in accordance with the Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate’s centralized jurisdiction over forest-related and wildlife-related cases.
Due to the serious circumstances of the case, the Xicheng District Procuratorate intervened in the investigation in advance and set up a special case team headed by Deputy Prosecutor Zhao Wensheng.
The involvement of the procuratorial organs has brought a positive impact on the effective detection of the case.
The Xicheng District Procuratorate and Beijing Forestry Public Security Bureau communicated with the case many times after filing and investigating the case, clarifying the evidence standards for reviewing arrests and prosecutions in such cases, and listed a detailed investigation and evidence collection outline for the relatively weak initial objective evidence.
During the second on-site inspection, the public security agency found a handwritten phone number on the bag of the armor piece.
After investigation, the owner of the number machine was arrested by Ding Moumou. The acquisition of this evidence laid a solid foundation for the next investigation.
Pharmaceutical companies take risks and seek huge profits
Following the in-depth investigation of the case, investigators discovered that Ding's cousin Ding was the legal representative of a pharmaceutical company in Anhui, which was mainly engaged in the processing of decoction pieces of traditional Chinese medicine.
According to the account of the financial officer of Ding's company, Ding sold a large number of illegally purchased pangolin tablets to a pharmaceutical company in Beijing and provided a bank account for receiving and transferring payments.
So far, the criminal facts of a Beijing pharmaceutical company have surfaced.
Subsequently, the public security agency seized more than 1,100 kilograms of unsold pangolin products and more than 800 kilograms of antelope horn products (including 3,830 whole antelope horns) in a Beijing pharmaceutical company.
After appraisal and evaluation, pangolin products are Appendix I species of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, with a value of nearly 6 million yuan; antelope horn products are national first-level protected wild animals with a value of more than 110 million yuan.
During the trial, Mr. Guo, a shareholder of a pharmaceutical company in Beijing, confessed that in 2015, the company applied for administrative approval in the name of someone bringing 5,000 kg of pangolin tablets into the company.
In fact, this so-called shareholder is the company’s janitor, there is no pangolin pangolin at all, but the company has successfully defrauded the sales quota of more than 5,000 kilograms of pangolin pangolin by this trick.
It is reported that my country’s Criminal Law and Wildlife Protection Law clearly stipulate that the sale, purchase, and use of national key protected wild animals and their products is prohibited. If there is a real need due to special circumstances, it shall be approved by the wildlife protection department of the provincial government and in accordance with the regulations. Obtain and use special logos.
In order to seek huge profits, a certain pharmaceutical company in Beijing did not hesitate to take risks again and again.
In 2017, it used the opportunity of merging another pharmacy to falsify the inventory of more than 6,000 kilograms of pangolin tablets in the merged pharmacy in the audit report, and again defrauded more than 6,000 kilograms of pangolin tablets for administrative permission.
"When the company applied for administrative license, the staff of the wildlife protection station had to come to the warehouse to check the packaging. Because there were not so many genuine products, the company leaders asked the employees to use some empty boxes and other medicinal materials for the inspection." The company's employees confessed in the court hearing. .
While defrauding administrative licenses, the company also purchased large amounts of pangolin pieces and antelope horn products from multiple suppliers.
From 2016 to 2018, the company illegally purchased more than 9,890 kilograms of pangolin tablets and more than 960 kilograms of antelope horn products.
After further investigation, it was found that dozens of tons of pangolin tablets purchased by a pharmaceutical company in Beijing from Bozhou, Anhui, and Anguo, Hebei over the years, except for a small number of companies used to make Chinese patent medicines for sale, a large number of them were sold to other pharmaceutical companies with a price increase per kilogram. Thousands of dollars in order to make huge profits.
"The source of these goods is not correct, and the only way to pay for the goods is through the'off-book account', using the personal bank cards of company employees to pay for the goods. However, with the fraudulent administrative license, these illegally purchased medicinal materials are once again exported to the pharmaceutical company. It was'whitewashed' when it was sold." Shi Liang said, the evidence in the case shows that the company bought more than 9,890 kilograms of pangolin tablets for a transaction value of more than 29.63 million yuan, and sold more than 7,440 kilograms of pangolin tablets to other pharmaceutical companies. The transaction amount reached 45.31 million yuan, of which the profit can be seen.
The case-handling personnel overcome the difficulties and defeated each one
A reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" learned that the case is complicated, involving multiple pharmaceutical companies in many provinces and cities, and some of the persons involved in the case confronted the review during the investigation stage.
At the same time, cross-regional investigations face difficulties during the epidemic.
The case-handling organs closely communicated, intervened in investigations, guided the collection of evidence, built a framework for this series of cases, analyzed the persons involved in the case one by one, cracked each one, and finally mastered sufficient evidence to effectively charge the crime.
Zhao Wensheng introduced that through the vigorous investigation, review and guidance of the public security organs and procuratorial organs, the objective evidence of the case was sufficient and a complete chain of evidence was formed, and the relevant persons were convicted and punished for the crime of illegally purchasing and selling wild animal products.
On the premise of meeting the standards for epidemic prevention and control, prosecutors interrogated relevant criminal suspects in the detention center more than ten times before and after, which steadily and effectively promoted the retrieval of objective evidence, implemented the leniency system for guilty and punished, and made great efforts for the smooth handling of the case .
The prosecutor believes that a certain Beijing pharmaceutical company illegally acquired and sold precious and endangered wild animal products by fraudulently obtaining administrative licenses, and the circumstances were particularly serious.
Several defendants such as Chen and Guo, as shareholders of the unit and specific managers of finance, warehouses, workshops, etc., belong to the directly responsible persons in charge and other directly responsible persons in the unit’s crimes, and they should all illegally purchase and sell precious , The crime of endangered wild animal products shall be investigated for criminal responsibility.
During the trial, through sufficient court investigations and court debates, the prosecutor exposed the company as a regular pharmaceutical company from the evidence, facts and common sense of the case. In order to gain huge profits, it did not hesitate to defraud the state's administrative license to buy pangolins illegally. The criminal fact that the film was sold after "washing white".
In view of the complexity of the case, the case went through two hearings, and the court finally made the above-mentioned judgment.
At the same time, the defendants Ding Moumou, Ding Mou and others in the related case in this case pleaded guilty in court and pleaded guilty to the strict evidence system, and the court also issued a corresponding judgment.