"Collectible Auction" Accurately Defrauding the Elderly of More than 10 Million Yuan
Prosecutors in Beijing's Dongcheng District are involved in old-fashioned fraud
□ Our reporter Zhang Hao and Huang Jie
"33 five-star wheat ears, 35,000 yuan each; 13,500 yuan for each five-star watermark; 8,000 yuan for each wrong version... A total of more than 8.6 million yuan."
This food stamp "collection" valuation comes from a company that "appraises treasures" for free and is entrusted to auction, which is part of its fraudulent activities.
Gao Moumou, Wang Moumou and other 4 "international companies" registered and operated in Beijing operate "auction" business, and carry out fraud against the elderly accurately. More than 300 elderly people have been deceived successively, and the amount of fraud has reached more than 10 million yuan.
Recently, another member of the fraud gang was sentenced by the court in the first instance.
A reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" came to the People's Procuratorate of Dongcheng District, Beijing, and interviewed Wang Peilin, the procurator in charge of the case and the deputy director of the second procuratorial department of the court.
She restored the facts of the case and the modus operandi of the fraud gang to reporters, and at the same time put forward suggestions for social governance to plug the loopholes.
Busy commercial buildings hide fraudulent activities
From July 2018 to December 2019, Gao Moumou, Wang Moumou and others used their identities to set up 3 auction companies, and successively obtained administrative licenses for auction business.
The company's registered place is in the suburbs of Beijing, and its actual business location is selected in the shopping malls and commercial buildings in the prosperous areas of the core area.
In the auction company, there are roles such as "telephone salesman", "manager" and "appraiser".
The salesman contacted the elderly who were interested in auctioning the collectibles through the phone provided by the online, called free appraisal, high-priced auction, and invited the elderly to come to the company.
When the elderly arrived at the company with their "collections", the salesman warmly received them and photographed the collections by photographers, and handed them over to the "appraisers" for appraisal and appraisal.
The "collections" are all identified as "treasures", worth hundreds of thousands or even millions.
Fraud gangs tempt the elderly to sign an "entrusted auction contract" to create the illusion of a guaranteed and legal transaction.
When Wang Peilin introduced the case to reporters, she showed some of the "collections" used as evidence in the case, the "talk books" seized by the public security organs, and WeChat chat records.
The "valuation" at the beginning of the article comes from one of the "entrusted auction contracts".
The members of the criminal gang cooperate with each other, and the deception is intertwined.
After making the old people mistakenly believe that the collectibles are extremely valuable, they trick the old people into paying a larger amount of "commission" "proportionately" or to pay commission fees, service fees or security deposits, etc., and then let the old people take the "collection" home and other news.
Since then, the fraud gangs have continued to seek overseas buyers and high-end buyers by "transferring overseas markets" and "transferring boutique markets", paying customs duties, armed escort shipping fees, and "express card" processing fees to lure money.
When asked about the auction, it adopted a "delayed tactics".
In July 2020, Wang Moumou left the gang due to dissatisfaction with the distribution of benefits, and together with others, he established an international trading company in Chaoyang District, Beijing, and continued to use the same routine to commit fraud. 26 elderly people were defrauded for a total of more than 1.2 million yuan.
"How much is cheated" has become a common method
Wang Peilin showed reporters the authoritative appraisal of some "collected" physical evidence by the public security organs.
The identification results show that these so-called priceless vases, calligraphy and paintings are imitations, and the value of "collections" such as stamps and food stamps is only 8 yuan to 2,000 yuan.
Wang Peilin said that this is also the reason why the criminal gang asked the old man to take the "collection" home. They were looking for the money in the old man's hand.
During the case handling process, Wang Peilin found out that several elderly people were deceived, which made her feel very heavy.
Fraud gangs carefully plan for the psychology and living habits of the elderly. In addition to the administrative license to engage in the auction business, they also provide warm and considerate "services".
For example, targeting the travel habits of the elderly, sending text messages, attaching company addresses and bus routes.
"The salesman said, how much money is there, how much money should be paid first. 'I will lend you the rest first, and return it to me after the auction.'"
"The other party sent a video of the auction scene that was not clear, and then told me that the collection had passed the auction, and I had to pay more to transfer it to a boutique or overseas auction."
"Prosecutor, if these companies really auction off my collection, please protect my legal civil rights and get the money back."
...
In the process of handling the case, some victims told Wang Peilin.
Most of these elderly people think that their "collections" are really valuable, and a small number of them have a speculative attitude.
Some victims have even been deceived repeatedly in multiple companies controlled by the gang.
Wang Peilin said that "how much you cheat as much" and "swindle many times without any component" have become common methods for criminal suspects.
A chat record between the suspects shows that under the guidance of the "supervisor", the salesman asked the elderly to withdraw fixed deposits.
According to Wang Peilin's understanding, there have also been similar fraudulent cases in other regions.
Some scammers even use "a box of money" as a prop, falsely claiming to be "received deposit", increasing the probability of successful fraud.
Only a few of these "money" are genuine coins on the surface, and the bottom is full of white paper.
never actually held an auction
When the public security organ received the report, in addition to Wang's company which was still operating, the other three companies were already empty.
At first, when Wang Peilin saw these cases, she felt that "the evidence is not very good".
The gang members all used false names. They asked the elderly to use cash or instructed to withdraw cash for transactions, and then made up "reissue receipts" and other reasons to take the receipts back.
Most of the elderly use old phones or even landline phones, and not many use smartphones. It is difficult to leave evidence such as recordings, photos, chat records, etc., and it is difficult to provide evidence afterwards.
The circulation of such criminal funds is secret, borrowing accounts set up in the name of others, and quickly transferring the money after defrauding them. It is difficult to find out the amount of crime and the whereabouts of the funds.
During the review and arrest stage, after seeing the criminal suspect, Wang Peilin worked through a lot of work to find out the mentality of the members of the fraud gang, and also laid the foundation for the work of confessing guilt and punishment.
After strengthening and sorting out the evidence, the procuratorial case-handling team supplemented the amount involved from more than 8 million yuan to more than 10 million yuan, and actively recovered more than 1.58 million yuan.
The clues of cases involving theft in the clues for recovering stolen goods and recovering losses shall be transferred, and the public security organs shall be notified to file the case.
The procuratorial case-handling team actively cooperated with the procuratorial technical department to transform a large number of "zero-confession" suspects through the identification results. The case achieved the effect of all defendants voluntarily admitting guilt and accepting punishment. At the same time, according to the law, some defendants with a particularly large amount of crime were advised to the court to deprive them of political right.
Since May 2021, the procuratorial organs have successively prosecuted more than 20 members of the fraud gang involved in the case for fraud.
The four were successively sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two years to eight years and two months, and fined ranging from 20,000 to 90,000 yuan.
Execution connection further plugs loopholes
The elderly often like to collect or have some "old objects" at home, but they do not have the expertise in forensics, let alone the relevant rules of the auction industry.
Wang Peilin noticed that three of the four "auction companies" involved in the case have auction administrative licenses.
Wang Peilin found that most of the auction companies in such cases had administrative licenses, which became an "endorsement" for the victims to regard them as regular companies.
"In some cases, the crime of fraud by criminal gangs has been identified, these administrative licenses are still in existence, and even these companies involved in the case are still in existence." Wang Peilin said that the fight against pension fraud cannot stop at the end, but also to smooth administrative supervision Linking channels with criminal justice to promote the strengthening of industry governance and social governance.
Wang Peilin said that the Dongcheng District Procuratorate will take this case as an opportunity to conduct investigations into the auction industry's licensing, supervision, and collectible fraud cases, and pilot the smooth connection between execution and punishment to ensure that illegal and criminal entities are cleaned up and rectified in a timely manner.
Where does the personal information of the elderly who have been accurately defrauded come from?
How to effectively promote the supervision of the auction industry?
The reporter noticed that there are still many questions left in such cases waiting to be further revealed.