Transactional bribery presents the characteristics of diversity and concealment
"Legal" cloak is difficult to conceal the reality of money transactions
Author: Our reporter Li Lingna
Zhao Yong, former party secretary and president of China Guangfa Bank’s Tianjin Branch, used his position to influence low-price housing purchases; Liu Guoqiang, former deputy secretary and vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, purchased real estate at a price significantly lower than the market price; former member of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and former executive deputy city government Chief Su Zequn accepts other people's property in the form of low-cost house purchases or in the name of providing consulting services after retirement... After combing through the review and investigation column of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and State Supervision Commission website, the reporter found that the statement of "low-priced house purchase" in the notice appeared from time to time.
"Buying a house at a low price" is on the surface a market transaction, and behind it is the transfer of interests and the transaction of power and money.
Under the situation of high pressure to punish corruption, some methods of corruption have changed, and there have been changes in power and money transactions under the guise of civil actions-transactional bribery. Compared with traditional forms of power and money transactions, it shows diversity and concealment. Features.
How to rectify these problems in the name of market transactions and the real issues of exercise money transactions?
1 Use seemingly legal trading methods to cover up the fact of illegal acceptance of bribes
Replaced the self-used Volkswagen Tuon with a brand new Toyota Senna; sold the Volkswagen Tiguan used by his wife, BMW X1 and Porsche Mica used by his daughter at doubled prices; sold a village in Da'an City The courtyard and a sea-view house that no one cares about in Shandong Province were replaced with two retail houses in Daan City’s commercial circle worth more than 2.4 million yuan...In three years, Ju Wancheng, former party secretary and director of the Daan City Transportation Bureau of Jilin Province, replaced the old with new ones. He traded small for big, bought low and sold high, and was suspected of accepting bribes of more than two million yuan through transactions.
With the jurisdiction designated by the Baicheng Discipline Inspection Commission, the Zhenlai County Commission for Discipline Inspection conducted an investigation and investigation on Ju Wancheng's suspected serious violations of discipline and law.
"Usually, some construction and transportation business operators like to surround Ju Wancheng, because there are benefits to be found, and over time a'circle' is formed. People in the circle call him the boss, and he also enjoys this feeling." According to the investigator, Ju Wancheng frequently exchanged or traded his own house and car at prices much higher than the market price with people in his "circle" who wanted him to realize his power through this seemingly legal The means of transaction cover up the fact that oneself accepts bribes.
In January this year, the Zhenlai County People's Court of Jilin Province ruled that Ju Wancheng had accepted bribes of more than 2.5 million yuan in exchange of houses, cars and automobile transactions, which accounted for nearly one-third of the amount of bribes Ju Wancheng received.
Yu Shengnan, a cadre of the Propaganda Department of the Baicheng Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, told reporters that Ju Wancheng’s case has been included in the warning education film "Using Rights and Police". The Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision carried out warning education for party members and cadres in the city to prevent such problems. Happen again.
Transactional bribery is one of the new methods of bribery that have been frequently issued in recent years.
From a formal point of view, there are market transactions between the bribery parties and the bribery parties, but in reality they obviously violate the laws of market transactions and deviate from the basic principle of equivalent exchange.
In the final analysis, market transactions are just a cover, and their essence is power-to-money transactions.
According to Article 1 of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases of Bribery", transactional bribery refers to the fact that state officials use the convenience of their positions to seek benefits for the trustee, and thus pass low prices. The act of buying, selling at a high price, or accepting property from others in the form of other spread transactions.
The amount of transactional bribery is calculated based on the difference between the local market price at the time of the transaction and the actual price paid.
The market price includes the lowest preferential price set in advance by the commodity operator that is not targeted at a specific person.
2 Buy at a low price, sell at a high price, trade in the old, and refurbish the form
There is no willingness to buy a house, why is the price of the house more and more cut when the price is bargained?
"I heard that someone sold a house to a management service target, and the price could still be higher." Under this kind of thinking, Zhu Chunxia, the former deputy director of the customs of Suzhou Industrial Park in Jiangsu Province and an investigator, found a certain information technology company. The general manager of the company Ye Mou.
Zhu Chunxia once took advantage of her position to accept Ye's request to seek benefits for her company in information system promotion and business support.
Zhu Chunxia did not evade, she directly told Ye that she wanted to sell a second-hand house, and asked if she was willing to buy it.
At this time, a house of the same type in the same community had just been sold for 2.5 million yuan, but Zhu Chunxia was about to sell it for 3.8 million yuan.
"During the development of the company, Zhu Chunxia helped a lot, so when she offered to sell the house, she agreed no matter how much the asking price." Ye said that he was willing to buy on the spot, in fact, he wanted to take the opportunity of buying a house to send money.
Since the transaction was directly based on the price proposed by Zhu Chunxia, there was a suspicion of benefit transmission from buying a house from her, so they found a real estate agency to handle the purchase of a house.
When both parties "bargained", Ye Mou first mentioned the house price from 3.8 million yuan to 4 million yuan.
Considering the unnaturalness of integer transactions, the two parties negotiated to set the price at 3.98 million yuan, and Ye directly paid 2 million yuan as an advance payment.
However, things were not all smooth sailing. Affected by the purchase restriction policy at the time, the buyer Ye found did not have the qualifications to buy a house.
Later, Ye found Zhu Chunxia and told her that she could not buy a house due to the buyer's reasons, and that the deposit she paid was not required to be repaid. He also added a deposit bar to Zhu Chunxia to continue to cover up the power and money transaction.
After such a deal, Zhu Chunxia's house was still in her hands, but she received a "liquidated damage" of 2 million yuan.
The transaction-based bribery that was originally carried out by selling houses at high prices has evolved into a transaction-based bribery that used the liability for breach of contract.
Sorting out the cases investigated and dealt with in various places in recent years, from the perspective of the form of transactions, in addition to "sold at high prices" like Zhu Chunxia, there are also "buys at low prices."
Jiang Dechuan, the former party secretary of Fengcheng Township, Fengxian District, Shanghai, "struggled" to buy a house at a low price for himself and the other two people. The difference between the market price of the four-house transaction and the actual price paid was more than 3.87 million yuan.
Some are "trade-in-the-old".
When Yang Shangchun served as the deputy director of the Research Office of the People’s Procuratorate of Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, he took advantage of his power and status to replace his own van worth 42,000 yuan to an air-conditioning manufacturer, and accepted Chen, the legal representative of the enterprise. A brand-new car worth 139,000 yuan.
Some even make use of their positions to facilitate compulsory apportionment.
Yan Jingshuo took advantage of being the deputy county head of the People’s Government of Donghai County, Jiangsu Province and the director of the county public security bureau to undertake the project for Tan, the project leader of a construction engineering group in Jiangsu, and Xu, a shareholder of Donghai Construction and Installation Engineering Co., Ltd. Provided assistance in matters such as project payment payment.
The two gave money to Yan Jingshuo, but Yan Jingshuo confiscated them.
In order to get the money back, Yan Jingshuo told the two that his brothers were in the liquor sales business and asked them to "support and support" the purchase of liquor.
After the "transaction", Yan Jingshuo received 240,000 yuan from Tan and 180,000 yuan from Xu in a disguised manner of apportioning liquor.
Driven by profit, some people smell "business opportunities" and "make profits" between buying and selling.
Wen Min, the former director of the Office of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and former deputy director of the Economic and Information Technology Commission, relied on the method of "sweeping and shifting, buying low and selling high", and successively sold 14 sets of real estate, making a profit of nearly 10 million yuan.
Among his dozens of properties, except for a small number of properties that come from direct demand, most properties have a common feature, that is, they use their power to operate through others, buy low and sell high to make a profit, and they are mixed with demand and lending. , Top-end account, replacement, decoration, and other issues such as payment on behalf of others.
3 Under the guise of "buying instead of bribery", it is more difficult to investigate and deal with violations of discipline and law
After the judgment of the first instance, Zhu Chunxia filed an appeal.
Regarding the "liquidated damages", Zhu Chunxia and his defenders proposed that "the first-instance judgment found that Zhu Chunxia's acceptance of 2 million yuan by Ye in the name of selling the house constituted an improper bribery. This fact is the prepayment for the purchase of a house by lawful house purchase and should not be regarded as bribery" Reasons for appeal and defense opinions.
Bao Zheng, deputy leader of the Disciplinary Inspection and Supervision Group of the Suzhou Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Municipal Housing and Urban-rural Construction Bureau, was once one of the investigators of the Zhu Chunxia case.
In his view, there are certain difficulties in investigating such transactional bribery cases.
Transactional bribery cases need to pay more attention to the qualitative, evaluation, and amount determination.
After research and judgment, the case-handling personnel broke through the Zhu Chunxia case through several "unreasonable" cases.
For example, between Zhu Chunxia and Ye, it was originally a relationship between national staff and management service targets. Ye had no intention to buy a house, but became a buyer behind the scenes; the house price agreed by the buyer and the seller was significantly higher than the market price; bargaining After that, the more "cut" the house price, the higher.
In order to conceal people's eyes, some state functionaries use their positions for the benefit of the trustee, and instead of directly accepting the trustee's property, they instruct or acquiesce the trustee to conduct transactions with a third party, using the third party as the link of the turnover property.
This kind of transactional bribery adds an intermediate link, which is actually a cover for receiving money.
Ye added an intermediate link, and the buyer he found was the "third person" between him and Zhu Chunxia.
The court found that the "advance payment" of 2 million yuan received by Zhu Chunxia was a bribe given by Ye when he did not have the conditions to buy a house.
In the end, the Higher People's Court of Jiangsu Province made a ruling: dismissed the appeal and upheld the original verdict.
Coincidentally, Li Zhiling, the former director of the Issuance Supervision Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, used the convenience of her position to provide assistance in the refinancing of a subsidiary company of a certain group, and cooperated with its specific related parties to sell Chinese paintings, oil paintings, porcelain and other items to a certain group at a price significantly higher than the market price. The total amount of bribes given by a certain group was 28.65 million yuan.
Experts said that although judicial interpretations have made relevant provisions on this type of bribery crime, there are still some controversies in practice.
For example, in terms of market price determination, it involves the determination of market prices in new commodity trading markets, the determination of second-hand commodity market prices, and the determination of the market value of special real estate.
Transactional bribery mostly targets items such as houses, cars, etc. However, after more complicated transaction forms such as transfer of company shares, celebrity calligraphy and painting, antiques, etc. appear, it becomes more difficult to determine the price.
The "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Bribery" stipulates that "Purchasing goods at preferential prices does not constitute bribery".
Individuals deliberately took advantage of the loopholes, evaded investigation, and adopted the method of "small profits but quick turnover". Each time they made a small profit, but the frequency was more frequent and the time was longer.
Fu Xiaodong, a member of the Supervisory Committee of Luoyuan County, Fujian Province, believes that some transactional bribery shows a certain degree of option in time, and it is more difficult to investigate and deal with violations of discipline and law.
Traditional bribery is only a short-term gain. Bribery and bribery will generally directly trade power and money, but with the development of economy and society, this method is gradually being changed.
On the one hand, based on the need for long-term benefit acquisition, the two parties have changed from short-term to long-term cooperation, and through long-term cooperation, bribery is completed, which increases the concealment.
On the other hand, what the briber wants to obtain is not necessarily an existing specific benefit, but to establish a relatively fixed interest link with state officials in order to get more "care" in the future.
4 Remove the "figure leaf" and investigate hidden corruption such as buying low and selling high.
The key to punishing hidden corruption such as buying low and selling high is to uncover the fig leaf of "transaction".
When the Heilongjiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision deployed its work in 2021, it clearly proposed to dig deep, buy low, sell high, and shadow shareholders and other hidden corruption.
The Zhejiang Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection also made it clear that it must seriously investigate and punish hidden corruption that conveys benefits through investment, borrowing, and buying low and selling high houses.
Disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies hold on to the possible clues of transaction-based bribery, and conduct in-depth research and judgment on whether the transaction price is reasonable, whether the transaction form is normal, whether the relationship between the parties to the transaction is affected by public power, etc. , Investigation and verification.
Zhengzhou Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, was investigating a serious violation of discipline and law by a former member of the Standing Committee of a county party committee and former executive deputy county magistrate. The high-end residences under the name of his mother-in-law attracted the attention of the investigators: Ren Mouwei's mother-in-law is a retired in her 80s Teachers, although they have a stable income, can hardly afford huge housing payments. Moreover, the motivations and sources of funds for purchasing high-end housing in the elderly need to be investigated in depth.
With the clarification of the clues reflecting Ren's acceptance of the real estate donated by the developer and the breakthrough of other problem clues, Ren finally filed a case with the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and confessed his purchase of real estate at a significantly lower than market price and other violations of discipline and law.
At the same time, various local discipline inspection and supervision agencies used big data platforms such as the improvement of tax supervision and early warning systems to promptly screen for transactions that clearly violate market laws.
In the supervision, in conjunction with tax law enforcement agencies, we will screen multiple transactions and abnormal tax payment behaviors, identify public officials who may have problems, and then compare individual related matters reports to check clues about related problems.
"During the investigation of the case, it was discovered that the businessman Pan Moumou once presented a second-hand Audi to Zhang Jinfu, the former deputy director of the Municipal Civil Air Defense Office. In order to circumvent the investigation, the car was transferred four times, and the car was paid by transfer, which was packaged as a real transaction. "The person in charge of the relevant department of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision of Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, told reporters that at present, the city has established a clean information management system for cadres, covering the basic personal information of cadres, real estate, vehicles and other personal matters, as well as reports of letters and visits, and party discipline and government sanctions. Wait for disciplinary information, and update it in time according to changes in integrity.
In order to avoid the occurrence of similar “four transfers”, the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection set up early warning conditions such as “a certain number of annual transactions of real estate or vehicles and more” in the system, and focused on discovering signs and tendencies through “system early warning + manual research and judgment” For sexual problems, catch the early, catch the small, and remind you first.
To rectify the new type of corruption that transfers benefits in the form of transactions, it is necessary not only to increase the punishment of the bribery party, but also to start with the bribery party.
The National Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and relevant units jointly issued the "Opinions on Further Promoting the Joint Inspection of Bribery and Bribery". Local Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervisory Committees insisted on conducting joint investigations on bribery and bribery. Disciplinary work pattern.
The Yunnan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection has severely dealt with those who paid large amounts of bribes and many times, and resolutely broke the network of power and money transactions, and continued to form the deterrence of "dare not to be corrupt."
When dealing with bribery cases, the bribers will also put forward handling opinions and submit them to the Standing Committee of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Executive Committee of the Supervisory Committee for research and deliberation, and comprehensively use liens, disciplinary sanctions, and conversation letters to strengthen bribery. Human handling.