Strictly punish money laundering crimes in accordance with the law to maintain financial security and judicial order-the head of the Fourth Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the People's Bank of China Anti-Money Laundering Bureau answered questions from reporters on the joint release of typical cases of punishing money laundering crimes
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of my country, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to financial security work. Maintaining financial security is a strategic and fundamental issue related to the overall economic and social development of our country.
Anti-money laundering is an important task in maintaining financial security, improving national governance, and promoting two-way openness.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that “preventing and resolving financial risks is the fundamental task of financial work. It is necessary to control people, watch money, and strengthen the system firewall”, which points out the direction for doing well in anti-money laundering work.
The Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council has convened many meetings to provide comprehensive guidance and specific arrangements for anti-money laundering work.
With the rapid development of society and economy, various crimes and money laundering activities are intertwined and permeated. Money laundering crimes play a role in helping others to abuse and serve as enemies. Money laundering methods are constantly being renovated, and the amount of money involved continues to rise.
Money laundering cases that transfer illegal funds to illegally absorb public deposits, fund-raising fraud and other public-related crimes continue to occur frequently. Money laundering crimes that use online drug trafficking, cross-border drug trafficking and laundering of drug money and stolen goods have shown a frequent trend, and Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are used for money laundering. New methods are more concealed... Various types of money laundering criminal activities pose a serious threat to social stability, financial security and judicial justice.
In accordance with the important deployment requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council for anti-money laundering work, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the People’s Bank of China gave full play to their departmental functions, strengthened coordination and cooperation, effectively cracked down on various illegal money laundering activities, and severely punished a group of criminals in accordance with the law.
In order to better sum up experience, after the 10th plenary meeting of the Inter-Ministry Joint Conference on Anti-Money Laundering, the two departments started to sort out and screen outstanding cases of money laundering crimes nationwide to guide the grassroots judicial organs and administrative supervision departments to effectively carry out anti-money laundering jobs.
After repeated research, on March 19, the two departments jointly released 6 typical cases of money laundering crimes. These cases not only reflect the functional role of the procuratorial organ and the People’s Bank of China, but also fully reflect the results of the cooperation between the two departments to maintain financial security and prevent And the fight against money laundering crimes have played a very good exemplary role.
Zheng Xinjian, Director of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and Chao Kejian, Director of the Anti-Money Laundering Bureau of the People's Bank of China, responded to reporters' concerns on related issues.
Question: What are the characteristics of these typical cases of money laundering crimes?
Answer: This time, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the People’s Bank of China have carefully screened and fully communicated money laundering cases that have been successfully handled in recent years, and selected 6 cases that have bright spots and guiding significance in the application of law and case handling. Typical Case.
This batch of typical cases has the following characteristics:
The first is to demonstrate the attitude of severely punishing money laundering crimes in accordance with the law.
The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core attaches great importance to anti-money laundering work. All relevant departments vigorously promote anti-money laundering-related legislation, law enforcement and judicial work, and comprehensively increase law enforcement and judicial efforts against money laundering crimes.
Among the 6 typical cases, the prosecutors added additional prosecution of money laundering criminal suspects through case-filing and supervision, some added the amount of money laundering crimes identified by the prosecutors during the review and prosecution, and some found clues of money laundering crimes when they were investigating predicate crimes and transferred them to the public security organs for investigation. Some prosecutors use indirect evidence to effectively prove and accuse money laundering crimes, while others use both administrative and criminal penalties, showing the prosecutors’ and the People’s Bank of China’s non-indulgence and strict punishment of money laundering crimes from different aspects.
The second is to reveal the money laundering methods of various predicate crimes, guide the handling of cases, and strengthen warning education.
The 6 typical cases cover the current frequent and common types of predicate crimes of money laundering, including organized crimes of the nature of the underworld, illegal fundraising crimes, corruption and bribery crimes, drug crimes, etc., fully revealing the common methods and uses of money laundering crimes under different predicate crimes New criminal methods such as virtual currency money laundering.
These cases not only have a guiding significance for judicial case handling in terms of fact finding and the application of laws, but also warn the public to let everyone know which behaviors are money laundering, and to avoid criminal acts of money laundering because of the greed for personal gain or the affection of family members.
The third is to demonstrate the effectiveness of procuratorial organs and the People’s Bank of China in anti-money laundering and criminal execution.
In the 6 typical cases, the People’s Bank of China, as the administrative department in charge of anti-money laundering, gave full play to the functions of administrative supervision through administrative law enforcement and administrative penalties, by transferring suspected money laundering criminal cases, assisting the public security and procuratorial organs in tracking funds, fixing evidence, analyzing and making judgments for investigation and punishment. Money laundering crime provides strong support.
As a legal supervision agency, the procuratorial organ, while prosecuting money laundering crimes in accordance with the law, effectively performs the functions of case filing supervision, guiding investigations, additional supplementary prosecutions, and self-investigation, which fully reflects the leading responsibility of the procuratorial organs to charge and prove crimes in criminal proceedings.
The People's Bank of China and the procuratorial organs have continuously strengthened anti-money laundering law enforcement and judicial cooperation by increasing the connection and coordination of executions.
Question: What are the functions of procuratorial organs in anti-money laundering work, and what effective measures have they taken?
Answer: In recent years, the procuratorial organs have conscientiously implemented the central government’s deployment requirements for comprehensively strengthening anti-money laundering work, gave full play to their procuratorial functions, innovated working mechanisms, and performed their respective responsibilities and cooperation with administrative supervision departments and public security organs, and increased efforts to deal with money laundering. With regard to the punishment of crimes, the anti-money laundering work has achieved remarkable results.
One is to increase the punishment of money laundering crimes.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the provincial-level people’s procuratorates established an anti-money laundering work leading group to coordinate and promote anti-money laundering procuratorial work, and procuratorial organs at all levels established a "one case double investigation" working mechanism to conduct simultaneous review when handling seven types of upstream crimes of money laundering crimes Whether it is suspected of money laundering crimes, dig deep into the criminal clues, and increase the pursuit and prosecution of money laundering crimes related to various upstream crimes.
In 2020, procuratorial organs across the country approved the arrest of 221 people for money laundering crimes and prosecuted 707 people, an increase of 106.5% and 368.2% respectively over 2019.
The second is to promote legislative amendments and strengthen case handling guidance.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, in conjunction with the People’s Bank of China and many other departments, submitted to the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to amend the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law for money laundering crimes, promoted the Criminal Law Amendment (11) to make major adjustments to money laundering crimes, and increase punishment for money laundering crimes.
In conjunction with the Supreme People’s Court and the Ministry of Public Security, it has strengthened research on issues concerning the application of law in handling money laundering crimes, researched and formulated guiding opinions, unified law enforcement and judicial standards, and effectively improved the quality and efficiency of case handling.
This time, the People’s Bank of China released 6 typical cases, and through refining the highlights of these cases in allegation proving ideas and the application of law, it guides practical case handling in a more vivid and specific way.
The third is to strengthen communication and cooperation with relevant departments such as the People's Bank of China and public security agencies.
Carry out comprehensive collaboration in the joint meeting mechanism, case clues discovery and transfer, information sharing, industry governance, etc., to jointly consolidate the joint efforts of administrative and judicial professionalization.
The fourth is to pay attention to anti-money laundering legal propaganda.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate and local procuratorial organs at all levels conscientiously implement the responsibility of law popularization, combined with the cases handled, use traditional media, portals, "two micro-one end" and on-site law popularization and other methods to carry out anti-money laundering propaganda, conduct warning education, and guide the society The public shall establish and strengthen the awareness of preventing and punishing money laundering crimes.
Question: How do the anti-money laundering duties of the financial system play a role in punishing money laundering crimes?
Answer: The anti-money laundering responsibilities of the financial system are embodied in two aspects: prevention and assistance.
Financial institutions, payment institutions, etc. fulfill their anti-money laundering obligations in accordance with the law, including establishing internal anti-money laundering control systems, carrying out money laundering risk management, fulfilling customer identification, large and suspicious transaction reports, customer identification data and transaction record retention obligations, and assisting administration and law enforcement in accordance with the law Inquiry, freeze, and deduct relevant capital transactions with judicial authorities.
The People's Bank of China performs anti-money laundering supervision and management, large-value and suspicious transaction report collection, anti-money laundering monitoring and analysis, anti-money laundering investigations and other duties in accordance with the law, and cooperates with investigative and supervisory agencies to carry out anti-money laundering investigations on relevant cases.
The financial system can provide accurate financial intelligence and capital flow evidence for the detection of money laundering and related criminal cases.
In 2020, the China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center under the People's Bank of China received 2.58 million suspicious transaction reports from financial institutions and payment institutions.
People’s banks at all levels discovered and received 16,926 key suspicious transaction clues, conducted 7,804 anti-money laundering investigations, and transferred 5,987 clues to investigative and supervisory agencies; cooperated with investigative and supervisory agencies to carry out anti-money laundering investigations on 3,321 cases and assisted in uncovering suspected money laundering Waiting for 710 cases; the number of cases that promoted the sentence of money laundering crimes under Article 191 of the Criminal Law was more than three times that of last year, and the cooperation with the severe punishment of money laundering crimes has achieved remarkable results.
The six money laundering crime cases announced this time are typical of these cases.
Question: The Criminal Law Amendment (11) has made amendments to the crime of money laundering and clearly criminalizes "self-laundering". How will the procuratorial organ implement the new laws and regulations and continue to promote anti-money laundering work?
Answer: The Criminal Law Amendment (11) added a new provision that "self-laundering" constitutes a crime of money laundering. After a predicate criminal commits a crime, concealing or concealing the source and nature of the proceeds of the crime will no longer be treated as a follow-up act of handling illicit money. Absorption, but constitutes the crime of money laundering alone, increasing the punishment for the predicate offender who has benefited the most from the crime of money laundering.
In order to implement the requirements of the Criminal Law Amendment (11) on the crime of money laundering in Article 191 of the Criminal Law, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate is working with the Supreme People’s Court to study the revision of the crime of money laundering, concealing and concealing the proceeds of crime, and the judicial interpretation of the crime of proceeds of crime. Clarify the long-standing difficulties and disputes in the application of the law, and adjust some regulations that are not suitable for the actual situation of law enforcement and justice.
The conviction of "self-laundering" is a major adjustment made by the Criminal Law to money laundering crimes. The procuratorial organs will follow the legislative intent to increase the punishment of money laundering crimes and understand and implement the new criminal law.
Procuratorial organs at all levels should strengthen their awareness of combating "self-laundering" crimes and carefully review whether upstream criminals have "self-laundering" behaviors in handling various money laundering cases and the simultaneous examination of whether they are suspected of money laundering crimes. If it is discovered that the crime of money laundering has been omitted, the relevant department shall be required to transfer for prosecution or conduct an investigation on its own; if the evidence is reliable and sufficient, the crime of money laundering may be directly charged.
Question: How does the People's Bank of China play its anti-money laundering supervision function and promote the close connection between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice?
Answer: In recent years, the People's Bank of China has continuously strengthened its risk-based supervision concept, continued to increase law enforcement inspections, and established a “two-pillar” anti-money laundering regulatory system for risk assessment and law enforcement inspections. In 2020, 614 financial institutions, payment institutions, etc. Anti-money laundering obligatory agencies carried out special and comprehensive law enforcement inspections, and completed administrative penalties on 537 obligatory agencies in accordance with the law, with a penalty amount of 526 million yuan, and 1,000 individuals who violated regulations, with a penalty amount of 24.68 million yuan.
In promoting the connection between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, the following aspects have been strengthened:
The first is to guide voluntary agencies to strengthen their anti-money laundering performance capabilities, and to cooperate with investigations, judicial organs’ inquiries, freezing, and deductions of relevant fund transactions.
The People’s Bank of China continues to implement the concept of “strong supervision”, urges voluntary agencies to perform anti-money laundering duties such as the preservation of customer identity information and transaction records, and adopts necessary management and technical measures to promptly and accurately assist investigations, judicial authorities to complete fund transaction inquiries, Freezing, deduction and other work.
The second is to discover and transfer money laundering and related criminal clues during anti-money laundering law enforcement inspections.
In recent years, the People’s Bank of China has successively improved the law enforcement inspection capabilities of the anti-money laundering supervision team through the preparation of law enforcement inspection manuals and the application of data technical analysis tools. When conducting law enforcement inspections on voluntary agencies, in addition to thorough investigations of compliance obligations, Combining the characteristics of relevant transactions, we will deeply dig out relevant clues involving money laundering crimes and transfer them to the public security organs in a timely manner.
The third is to guide financial institutions to conduct self-assessment of risks based on information from investigative and judicial organs to improve money laundering risk management.
In early 2021, the Anti-Money Laundering Bureau of the People’s Bank of China issued the “Guidelines for the Self-Assessment of the Risks of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of Legal Person Financial Institutions”, which specifically emphasizes that financial institutions can accept criminal inquiries, freezes, deductions, Supervisory organs and public security organs make inquiries, freezes, and deductions as risk self-assessment factors, and rationally allocate anti-money laundering resources for high-risk areas discovered to improve the “risk-based” work capability.
The fourth is to carry out reverse investigations based on existing case information.
The People's Bank of China actively uses the information on money laundering cases that have been judged by the judicial organs to look back whether the obligatory institutions have performed their duties against money laundering in a case-oriented way, specifically discover hidden risks in the obligatory institutions, and impose penalties on relevant institutions and personnel.
Taking the money laundering case of Lei and Li as an example, the investigative and judicial organs accurately identified the various methods used by criminals to conceal illegal funds and brought them to justice. The People’s Bank of China responded to the financial institutions involved. The improper performance of money laundering has been given administrative penalties in accordance with the law.
Question: In what areas will the procuratorial organs focus on strengthening anti-money laundering work in the next step?
Answer: Anti-money laundering is a systematic work that requires efforts and cooperation in financial legislation, financial infrastructure construction, industry self-discipline, administrative supervision, and judicial guarantee. In the next step, the procuratorial organs will focus on case handling and implement the law in accordance with the law. Supervising responsibilities, intensifying anti-money laundering efforts from the following aspects.
First, continue to increase the prosecution of money laundering crimes.
To strengthen the double investigation of a case, and to handle predicate crimes, it is necessary to simultaneously examine the clues of money laundering crimes.
When guiding investigations and obtaining evidence, pay attention to guiding the public security organs to promptly track down the actual whereabouts of the property involved and clues about money laundering.
In the process of reviewing arrests, reviewing prosecutions and other case handling, comprehensively use the functions of case filing supervision and additional supplementary prosecutions to continuously increase the prosecution of money laundering crimes.
The second is to strengthen coordination and cooperation among various departments.
It is necessary to strengthen normalized collaboration with the People's Bank of China and its branches in information sharing, clue transfer, consultation and discussion, assistance in case handling, and preventive publicity.
At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen cooperation with law enforcement and judicial departments such as the Supervisory Committee, the courts, the public security, the customs anti-smuggling, and the maritime police to give full play to the joint efforts of punishing money laundering crimes.
The third is to strengthen the performance of procuratorial work.
While strengthening the punishment of money laundering crimes, procuratorial organs should also pay attention to their legal supervision responsibilities. Based on the problems found in the handling of money laundering cases, they should make procuratorial recommendations to relevant financial institutions, specific non-financial institutions, and regulatory authorities, and promote the improvement of anti-money laundering regulatory measures. Strengthen investigation and trial supervision, and actively explore and carry out public interest litigation procuratorial work, and strive to give full play to the anti-money laundering functions of procuratorial organs at all levels and at multiple levels.
Question: As the lead unit of the inter-ministerial joint meeting mechanism for anti-money laundering work, how can the People’s Bank of China give full play to the role of the coordination mechanism to jointly effectively combat money laundering crimes?
Answer: In 2003, the People's Bank of China began to undertake the function of organizing and coordinating the national anti-money laundering work, taking the lead in charge of the anti-money laundering joint meeting mechanism, and establishing and continuously improving the work framework of "the People's Bank of China takes the lead and each unit is responsible for the division of labor".
The anti-money laundering work inter-ministerial joint meeting mechanism currently has 21 member units, including financial supervision departments, industry authorities, discipline inspection and supervision departments, law enforcement departments, judicial departments, etc., which play an important role in combating money laundering crimes.
On March 1, 2021, the Criminal Law Amendment (11) will come into effect, and "self-laundering" will constitute a crime of money laundering separately, which is of great significance to curbing money laundering and predicate crimes.
In the next step, the People’s Bank of China will take this typical case release as an opportunity to actively cooperate with the member units of the joint meeting to strengthen publicity and study, in-depth understanding of the meaning of legislation, compact the main responsibilities of various departments, and give full play to the joint efforts of administration, law enforcement, and justice. Introduce judicial interpretations and guiding opinions, launch special operations or competitions to combat money laundering crimes, strengthen inter-departmental exchanges and discussions, and other forms, implement the new criminal law as soon as possible in judicial practice, crack down on various types of money laundering crimes, and effectively prevent and resolve major crimes. risk.