The billion-dollar pension scam hidden in candy
China News Weekly reporter / Zhou Qunfeng
Published in the 1052nd issue of "China News Weekly" on July 18, 2022
Han Hongying (pseudonym), a 64-year-old resident of Huainan City, Anhui Province, still can't believe that she had been taking high-priced health supplements for more than half a year despite her family's objections, but they were just cheap candies, which did nothing to her disease. Therapeutic effect.
Recently, Huainan police successfully busted a fraudulent gang selling fake health products, arrested 26 suspects, frozen more than 200 million yuan of funds and assets of more than 20 million yuan, and detained 38 kilograms of security deposits.
Previously, the gang taught so-called "health classes" almost every day through live webcasting, "brainwashing" the audience, and then peddling the "health products" they developed in WeChat groups.
They say these products can prevent and slow symptoms such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and joint pain in older adults.
Many people are convinced of these products and rush to buy them.
On July 9, Li Jie, deputy head of the Cyber Security Team of the Tianjia'an Branch of the Huainan City Public Security Bureau, told China News Weekly that the gang specifically targets middle-aged and elderly people over 50 years old to defraud, and has formulated targeted measures for this group. "Speech".
The agents have opened more than 600 physical stores across the country in more than 20 provinces, and more than 260,000 middle-aged and elderly people have joined their WeChat group.
These so-called health products, which cost hundreds of dollars, are actually ordinary candies.
After investigation and interrogation, the police found that the main suspects could be described as "false to the end". They made up titles such as "Academician" and "Head of Stem Cell Therapy" for themselves, and fabricated the efficacy of the products. Some suspects even had names. fake.
"Participants must be over 50 years old"
One day in late October 2021, Han Hongying, who had retired for many years, went to Qinhuangdao, Hebei with a tour group.
While chatting on the way, an elderly fellow said that on a live webcast platform, you can see a professional "lecturer" teaching health care classes almost every day, "The 'lecturer' is an academician with a medical professional background, and everyone over 50 years old is a teacher. You can watch the live broadcast for free, and you can also answer questions and receive red envelopes.”
After hearing these introductions, Han Hongying was moved considering that she had joint pains, a pelvic fracture, plaque in the carotid artery, etc.
Later, she was pulled into a WeChat group called "Scientific Law Self-cultivation Class".
The group has more than 200 members, and the group members call the group owner Ge Moumou "big shopkeeper".
Ge Moumou told the group members that only people over 50 years old can be pulled into the group.
After joining the group, Han Hongying quickly joined the army of listening to the class.
Before the live broadcast, group members can enter the live broadcast room only after entering their personal mobile phone number and the "house number" sent by the "big shopkeeper" on a live broadcast platform called "Wei Zan".
According to the above operation, Han Hongying found that two lecturers (Yin Moumou and Feng Moumou) took turns lecturing during the live broadcast.
Most of the lectures start around 8:00 pm, and occasionally they will be broadcast live at a certain time in the morning. Each time is about 1 hour, and they will be lectured almost every day.
According to the relevant introduction, Yin Moumou and Feng Moumou are both medical experts. Yin Moumou graduated from a well-known university in Beijing with a major in clinical Chinese medicine. He is an "academician of an institution in Beijing" and "head of stem cell therapy". Clinical experience, in-depth research on bone disease, diabetes, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and cancer.
The live broadcast of the lecture shows that there are often eye-catching trophies, certificates, etc. behind the "lecturer".
Taking into account the eyesight conditions of middle-aged and elderly people, the "lecturer" also deliberately handwritten some important "knowledge points" on A4 paper, and the words are also written in large letters. To make it more eye-catching, the title is also bolded in red. .
For example, in a lecture, Yin Moumou wrote several red characters "Expression of Deficiency of Qi" on the top of the paper, and then wrote 6 manifestations such as heart palpitations, panic, irritability and irritability below.
In order to let middle-aged and elderly people "consolidate their knowledge points", the "lecturer" also requires the audience to take notes every time they listen to the class.
Because of her old age, poor health, and no writing for a long time, Han Hongying's hands trembled a little when she was writing notes, but she still insisted on keeping records.
Each time the "Lecturer" broadcasts, there will be two questions for the audience to answer.
A screenshot of a live video provided by Han Hongying to "China News Weekly" shows that one of them is titled: Which of the following ingredients can clear liver toxins?
And listed four options: A, collagen; B, P40 detoxification protein; C, lactoferrin; D, casein.
Han Hongying said that if the group members answer correctly, they can also get red envelopes for encouragement.
Each red envelope usually has a few cents.
After the middle-aged and elderly people understand these health knowledge, the "lecturer" began to display "health products containing the above-mentioned ingredients" for middle-aged and elderly people with related diseases to buy.
Yin Moumou also said that his own parents and parents-in-law are also taking these health products, and the effect is good.
Li Jie said that the suspect had a strong purpose in letting middle-aged and elderly people answer questions in the group to receive red envelopes.
These questions basically revolve around nutrients, such as asking what are the benefits of probiotics and vitamins to the human body.
After the middle-aged and elderly people received the red envelopes, their enthusiasm for answering the questions increased, and the suspects launched so-called health products to induce them to buy.
Many interviewees said that Yin Moumou sometimes introduced some Chinese medicine prescriptions he prescribed during the live broadcast, "He said that a patient would be cured with a maximum of 5 doses, so he was called 'Yin 5 doses' in the medical community. ”, “Everyone mastered the knowledge points they said in the early stage, and felt that they were all experts, so they bought the health care products they recommended, and some people would prescribe medicines according to the prescriptions he prescribed.”
Han Hongying told "China News Weekly" that when she was told about the live broadcast and the purchase of such products, her family expressed opposition and advised her not to be fooled, but she trusted the words of the "lecturer" more.
In addition, it is very troublesome to go to the hospital to see a doctor, and an examination takes a lot of time, especially during the epidemic, it is even more inconvenient to go to the hospital, so she insists on buying these health care products.
Because she had plaque in her carotid artery, Han Hongying once bought 40 boxes of snow lotus snow peptides at one time for 1396 yuan.
She said that in order to make middle-aged and elderly people feel the greatest benefits, the "lecturers" encouraged everyone to buy "golden partners" (referring to purchasing multiple different products at one time).
Under the guidance of the "lecturer", Han Hongying successively bought more than a dozen products such as "Acupuncture and Blue Fruit VC Tablets" and compound probiotic freeze-dried powder.
She said that every time you decide to buy, you will first hand over 10 yuan to the "big shopkeeper" as a deposit in the WeChat group. Then hand over the money to the "big shopkeeper".
The police revealed that among the victims in the case, an old man from Shaanxi spent a total of more than 60,000 yuan to buy almost all the products the suspect was promoting, and some of them were purchased multiple times.
Han Hongying said that after listening to the class, if there is a problem, it can be reported to the "big shopkeeper", and then it will be reported to the "lecturer".
Some members of the group have questioned, why after taking it for a period of time, the symptoms have not been relieved?
The "lecturer" replied that the effect will not be immediate, you need to keep eating to see the effect, don't give up halfway.
On May 27 this year, Han Hongying watched the live broadcast of the day and finished the day's notes.
Since then, the "lecturer" has not been online for several days.
What she didn't know was that on May 30, all the suspects had been arrested.
Many victims, including Han Hongying, said that they were surprised to hear that they were arrested.
A victim said that she had a physical examination a few days ago, and from the physical examination report, after taking these health products, "there was no effect".
The main suspects are all "billionaires"
Before the arrest, the police had made sufficient preparations for the preliminary investigation of the suspect.
The police handling the case first obtained the corresponding clues from the Internet, and after the clues were pointed, they began to conduct field visits.
In mid-May, the police investigating the case visited Qianfeng Village, Tianjia'an District, Huainan City, and found a physical store selling health care products. The store was located on the first floor of an old-fashioned residential building. From the outside, it was very inconspicuous.
Li Jie said that the physical store did not even have a facade or signboard, so it attracted the attention of the police and suspected that there might be problems with the products sold in it.
The police found that the so-called "health products" sold inside did not have the health food logo commonly known as "blue hat" on the packaging.
The blue hat sign is a special sign for health food in my country. It is sky blue and has the shape of a hat.
Blue Hat products are health food marks approved by the State Food and Drug Administration.
Xu Yang, a police officer who handled the case, said that after verification, these products were all foods without any approval marks, and did not have any health care or medicinal value.
Further investigation by the police found that Li, the person in charge of the store, was the agent of these products in Huainan.
He opened a total of 4 physical stores in Huainan City (2 in Tianjia'an District, 1 each in Xiejiaji District and Fengtai County).
As the investigation deepened, the police discovered that there was a "big company" hidden behind the brick-and-mortar store. The company was registered in a city in Shandong, and the core members of the company were Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou.
They have developed more than 200 agents across the country.
Huainan agent Li also recruited 8 people to set up 8 WeChat groups, attracting local middle-aged and elderly people into the group. These group owners are called "big shopkeepers".
Like Han Hongying, there are as many as 260,000 middle-aged and elderly people across the country who have joined the WeChat group.
On May 23, the Huainan police, after fixing a large amount of evidence, determined that this was a criminal gang specializing in defrauding the money of middle-aged and elderly people, and immediately set up a special task force to conduct a comprehensive investigation.
Earlier, the Huainan City Public Security Bureau Tianjia'an Branch Network Security Brigade, who discovered clues and collected evidence in the case, made a special report to the city bureau.
Because the brigade has an investigative function, the sub-bureau decided that the brigade is mainly responsible for investigating and handling the case.
On May 30, the Huainan City Public Security Bureau unified supervision and coordination, Tianjia'an Branch was in charge of the command, and the network security, criminal investigation, public security, economic investigation and other police types jointly acted, and more than 40 police forces were dispatched to the company's Huainan agent and a certain company located in Shandong. The city's fraud gang headquarters launched a network closing operation.
With the strong cooperation of Shandong police, a total of 26 suspects were arrested, including 9 people from Huainan (Li and 8 "big shopkeepers") and 17 people including Yin Mou from Shandong.
The police handling the case revealed that the eight WeChat groups in Huainan have a total of thousands of members. "They sell products online and have physical stores offline, which makes many middle-aged and elderly people believe that this is a legitimate company. They think there is a store there. If they can’t run away, they believe their products are legitimate.”
The police found that the two main suspects in the case, Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou, had more than 300 million yuan in inflows in the past year.
In just over a year, the two have each earned more than 100 million yuan in illegal income.
When the police checked Yin Moumou's wife's mobile phone, they found that the balance on her mobile phone bank was more than 20 million yuan, and they also found 38 kilograms of gold bars in her home.
Yin Moumou explained that because he felt uneasy with so much money in his account, he bought 15 million yuan of gold bars and kept it at home as a wealth for his daughter; the police checked the suspect Zhang Moumou’s mobile phone and also It was found that the balance on the mobile banking was more than 40 million yuan.
Give the elderly "deductions" and "crisis"
While the criminal gang was destroyed, the police also seized a large number of fake health products.
When "China News Weekly" interviewed the Cyber Security Brigade of Tianjia'an Branch of Huainan City Public Security Bureau, the police handling the case showed the reporter dozens of products.
From the outside, these fake health products are exquisitely packaged, and the names are very confusing, such as snow lotus selenopeptide tablets, blue fruit VC tablets, compound multi-dimensional turtle calcium, ginseng Siwu paste, iron stick yam powder, Ejiao Guyuan cake, etc.
According to the suspects, these products were produced by some food processing factories they contacted. They belong to candy or solid beverages. The ex-factory price ranges from a few yuan to 20 yuan per catty.
After detaining these products, the police also hired the Huainan City Market Supervision and Administration Bureau to identify these products, but the result was that they had no therapeutic effect.
After interrogation, more details of the past and the crimes of the two main suspects were further clarified.
Yin Moumou once worked in sales in a company in Beijing. He once studied in a medical university in Beijing, so he has a certain understanding of pharmacology.
Yin Moumou said that his identity as a professional pharmacist is true, but he has never worked in a hospital. The so-called academician of such and such, the person in charge of stem cell therapy, and more than 20 years of clinical experience are all fabricated.
Zhang Moumou used to work in a supermarket, but he had no medical background and knew nothing about medicine.
Police revealed that Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou are both around 40 years old this year.
They have also worked in the sales of health products, and they met at a food fair in Shandong in 2020.
Seeing that health care products have considerable profits, in April 2021, the partnership registered a biotechnology company in Shandong, and developed national agents, hired "lecturers", and opened a live webcast room.
When the gang cooperates with the agent, it does not sign a cooperation agreement.
In order to better manage middle-aged and elderly people, some agents also recruit people to set up WeChat groups and act as group owners (that is, "big shopkeepers").
The sales price of these fake health products is determined by Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou, and the profit ratio between them and the agent is 50-50.
For example, an elderly person places an order through an agent to buy a product of 1,000 yuan. After the agent collects the money, he can directly deduct 500 yuan and transfer the other 500 yuan to the head office account.
Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou also hired Feng Moumou as a "lecturer", and fabricated the identities of Moumou doctor and nutrition expert for Feng Moumou.
In fact, Feng Moumou is just a mechanic and has no medical background.
In this way, Yin Moumou and Feng Moumou appeared on the live broadcast to middle-aged and elderly people.
After being arrested, Feng Moumou explained that the names he used during the live broadcast were all fake, and in less than a year, he received a share of up to 360,000 yuan.
The criminal gang has also formulated words specifically aimed at middle-aged and elderly people, of which Yin Moumou is the main maker of the words.
For example, if someone asks why these health care products do not have a small blue label, the corresponding phrase is "this is a new resource product, no small blue label is needed".
In the chat messages seized by the police, some elderly people asked cancer patients if they could take their products and what to do if some patients had adverse reactions while taking the products. The gang members responded by using pre-made words, saying "all of them can be taken" and "taken." Post-detoxification response” and so on.
The police revealed that the agents recruited by the gang across the country (there are currently more than 200 agents confirmed by materials and evidence) range in age from their 20s to their 50s.
If they can't answer the questions raised by some customers, they will feed back to the head office, and the customer service will reply, "In this case, Yin Moumou and Zhang Moumou asked the customer service to search on Baidu first, and then notify the agent of the answer. , and then give feedback to the middle-aged and elderly people. If Baidu can't answer, let the customer go to the hospital in time and follow the doctor's advice."
The customer service staff of the gang's head office are basically young women in their 20s. Many of them have secondary or high school degrees and lack medical knowledge.
Their daily work is to convey various words to the agents across the country, and at the same time collect the orders reported by the agents, and they will deliver the goods after statistics.
Li Jie said that in their words, they clearly mentioned that they would "deduct illness" and "under crisis" for middle-aged and elderly people.
The former means that when they talk about their discomfort in the WeChat group, when they reply to them, they say that they lack a certain nutrient, and the long-term lack of it will lead to illness; fear, and will buy more of their products.
"90% of victims hide from their families"
"China News Weekly" learned from the police handling the case that after being arrested, Yin Moumou confessed to his crime.
He expressed very regret, he did not expect this ending, and he did not want to have this ending.
He said that his behavior caused two damages to the middle-aged and elderly people, "one is the loss of money, and the other is the delay of illness".
"How would you feel if your parents suffered this kind of fraud?" asked Li Jie, the police officer in charge of Yin Moumou.
Yin Moumou replied that his parents are in their 60s this year and also have some diseases. If they encounter this kind of scam, "I will be very angry".
The police handling the case said that in order to maximize profits, the gang involved will carefully select and compare when they are looking for cooperative food companies.
"China News Weekly" looked at the text on these fake health products and saw that the companies that produced for the gang were all over Shandong, Henan, Anhui and other provinces.
Among them, an enterprise located in a city in Shandong has cooperated with the criminal gang for more than 20 products.
Li Jie said that when the police learned about the victims, they found that 90% of the victims did not tell their families about their experience of buying such so-called health care products.
He said, "Many of these groups are retired and have some savings, so they don't have to reach out to their children when they spend money. They are 'brainwashed' to believe in the efficacy of these products, and they are afraid that their families will prevent them from buying. At the same time, many elderly People don’t live with their children, and it’s not easy for children to find out that they are quietly taking these things. In addition, when these gang members sell them, the aunts are long and the aunts are short, which makes them feel close.”
He said that the case involved a large number of victims, and at present, the work of sorting out and verifying the groups of victims is being carried out closely.
Some elderly people have been "brainwashed" very thoroughly because of the long-term acceptance of this health product scam.
Even after the gang was destroyed, some elderly people still believed that these products were "effective" after taking them.
"China News Weekly" learned that some of the victims in this case even had higher education, and some were even regular hospital staff before retirement.
Police say seniors experience changes in their resilience, speed of reaction, and way of thinking about problems as they age.
You don't have to be highly educated and have a medical professional background to be fooled.
Some of them may lack professional knowledge even if they have a high degree of education. The suspects deliberately gave these products some names such as snow titanium and capsules, which increased the confusion.
Li Jie told "China News Weekly" that the old-age scam of counterfeit health care products is of a bad nature.
It is hoped that more middle-aged and elderly people, especially the elderly, can learn from this case.
At present, the suspect in the case is still under criminal detention, and the police are about to submit an arrest warrant to the prosecution.
"China News Weekly" Issue 26, 2022
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