Remediation of pension fraud: cut off the "black hand" reaching out to the elderly
China News Weekly reporter / Han Yong
Published in the 1052th issue of "China News Weekly" on July 18, 2022
Beginning in early April 2022, a special campaign to crack down on pension fraud for half a year will be launched nationwide.
This action was led by the Ping An China Construction Coordination Group established in April 2020, and established the National Special Action Office for Combating and Remediating Elderly Fraud (referred to as the "National Special Office"), with 12 member units, namely the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the Central Netcom Office, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Health Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
Behind this long-lasting special action involving many ministries and commissions is the reality that pension fraud is rampant and constantly renovated across the country, as well as the pension plight of the elderly in China in the context of an increasingly aging population.
"Best scam for the price"
The extent of the rampant pension fraud can be seen from the data reported in various places since the start of this special operation: According to the data released by the Ministry of Public Security, so far, public security organs across the country have cracked more than 7,880 cases of infringement on the rights and interests of the elderly, arrested There were more than 17,510 criminal suspects, more than 1,040 illegal and criminal gangs were destroyed, and economic losses of more than 8.4 billion yuan were recovered.
Among them, Tianjin cracked 116 cases of pension fraud, arrested 355 criminal suspects, destroyed 5 gangs, and seized and frozen more than 480 million yuan of property involved in the case; Henan Province filed 105 such cases, solved 46 cases, and destroyed 48 cases. There were 31 gangs, 121 criminal suspects were arrested, and nearly 100 million yuan of losses were recovered; 253 cases were cracked in Jiangsu Province, 54 criminal gangs were destroyed, 1,226 criminal suspects were arrested, and 110 million yuan of property involved was recovered.
Among them, there are some typical cases involving a huge amount of money and a large number of people involved. For example, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau investigated a case of illegally absorbing public deposits from the sale of pension wealth management products, involving a value of more than 6 billion yuan; Fujian Provincial Public Security cracked a very large pension-related fraud case. 14 suspects of fraud were arrested, and a large number of false identification certificates and inferior calligraphy and paintings were seized on the spot, with a cumulative transaction amount of more than 280 million yuan.
There are several prominent features of pension fraud cases: First, the “contracts”, that is, the number of victims is large, ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands.
In a typical case published by the Supreme People’s Court, “Aiwan” companies such as Jiangsu Aiwan Investment Co., Ltd. invested and established by Cao Binming used high returns with an annualized rate of return of 8% to 36% as bait to promote new types of pensions and financial pensions. , accumulatively illegally absorbed funds from more than 110,000 people, mainly the elderly; the second is that the amount involved is huge, ranging from one million yuan to hundreds of millions or even several billion yuan, and the pension fraud cases involving illegally absorbing public deposits are even more For example, the amount involved in the above-mentioned "Love Night Series" amounted to more than 13.207 billion yuan.
Another feature of this type of cases is that most of the defrauded funds are pension funds, which are related to the livelihood of the rest of their lives, and they are often deceived to the bottom of the family, and the claims are very small. If secondary disasters such as mass incidents are caused, if they are not handled properly, there will be great security risks to both the victims and the society.
In January 2021, a 62-year-old man in Hunan jumped off the Zijiang Bridge and ended his life.
He once spent 170,000 yuan to book an old-age bed in an apartment for the elderly, but the old-age institution suffered a thunderstorm in 2020. The person in charge was arrested on suspicion of illegal fund-raising. The money he deposited was trapped and could no longer be taken out.
The victims of the mine explosion in the nursing home involved more than 4,000 elderly people, the youngest being 62 years old and the oldest 89 years old.
In addition, due to the characteristics of the elderly and fraudsters in China, pension fraud cases are relatively easy to occur.
From the perspective of the elderly, a large proportion of the elderly in China have three characteristics: first, spiritual emptiness due to lack of children’s company; second, not enough income accumulation before retirement and investment for children, resulting in poor material wealth; third, pension and other various factors The protection is relatively lacking or insufficient.
This leads them to have three potential needs. One is spiritual companionship. They hope that someone will accompany them to talk to them, or they simply hope that someone will pay attention to them. The second is to hope that the money in their hands can generate money and accumulate more for the future retirement. Some money; third, I hope to have a stable guarantee, so that I can see a stable and reassuring expectation for the rest of my life.
And the tricks of scammers are almost tailored to these needs: they usually start by communicating their feelings, and the means is to accompany them with extraordinary enthusiasm, accompanied by free in-depth services such as housework, foot washing, travel, etc., making the elderly feel "" The pie has really fallen from the sky”; then recommend their own products to the elderly in a timely manner, usually promising to make steady profits without losing money, and to have high returns that are seriously beyond the normal range of the market, making the elderly feel that if they don’t invest, they are missing out on making money. It’s a good time; in another step, they will arrange the old-age security for the elderly, such as promising low-cost or even free beds in a nursing home, so that the elderly feel that they will follow these people and have no worries.
China's pension fraud may be the most cost-effective type of fraud for scammers, because the victims are too easy to "take the bait". They are targeting those who have a high awareness of prevention because their basic spiritual and material needs are not met. People who are easily penetrated.
Fraudsters pay a small cost, but society pays a huge cost, which only begins to emerge after the fraud is completed.
The huge mental and material blows brought by fraud to the elderly are much more difficult to digest than young people. The elderly will react violently and will last for a long time. Totally unresolved.
These costs are borne by the entire society, and the local government has to devote a lot of human energy to deal with the resulting gatherings, possible emergencies, comfort for the elderly, and recourse for defrauded property.
A police officer who has been in contact with pension fraud cases many times said that pension fraud cases have a heavy workload and involve a wide range of issues.
"From this point of view, for the handling of such cases, the cost of pre-prevention is lower than that of post-processing."
This is also a background for the launch of the special campaign to crack down on pension fraud.
Since the special operation, some cases of pension fraud have been punished severely.
For example, in mid-May, the Beilin District Court of Xi'an publicly sentenced a case of pension fraud. The defendant Gao pretended to be a bank staff member and lured the victims to use the pension and other idle funds for false investment and financial management, and successively defrauded 16 victims with a total of more than 8.9 million yuan.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In the judgment, he deceived the elderly as a serious circumstance. "He took the elderly and other socially vulnerable people as the object of crime, defrauded pension money, and committed fraud crimes, and he should be given a heavier punishment."
Governance is imminent
The deeper background to crack down on pension fraud is the deepening aging of China and the various challenges it brings, which puts pension itself in a predicament of intertwined problems - whether it is for the elderly or for the government and the government. society.
And pension fraud has made the elderly group who are already in a difficult situation even worse.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, China's population over the age of 60 will be 267.36 million, of which the population over the age of 65 will be 200.56 million, an increase of 9.92 million over 2020, accounting for 14.2% of the total population.
Compared with 2020, the proportion of China's population over 60 years old and over 65 years old in 2021 will increase by 0.2 and 0.7 percentage points respectively, and the degree of aging will further deepen.
In addition, since the baby boomer population from 1962 to 1976 will be aging in the next 5 to 10 years, the pressure of aging in China will be even greater.
China's aging has several distinctive features. One is that it is coming fast. In the past few years, the feeling of aging was discussed in Western countries. In the blink of an eye, China is already moderately aging. Second, it is huge in scale. There is one Chinese, and the third is getting old before getting rich, and the speed of improving security cannot keep up with the speed of population aging.
The traditional main body of old-age care in China, the family, is gradually weakening due to the decline in the number of households per household, the increase in the number of divorces, and the increasing spatial distance between family members due to frequent mobility.
The average household population in China has dropped from 4.41 in 1982, 3.96 in 1990, 3.44 in 2000, and 3.10 in 2010 to 2.62 in 2020.
However, social insurance, which has to undertake the heavy responsibility of old-age security, has made great progress in recent years, but there are still two problems: one is that the level of security is generally low, and the fees of nursing homes are relatively stretched; Sustainability is constrained by the large pension gap and severe regional imbalances.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2021, China's basic old-age insurance will cover more than 1 billion people, of which the basic old-age insurance for urban workers and the basic old-age insurance for urban and rural residents will be 480.75 million and 547.97 million, respectively. high.
In rural areas, the minimum standard of basic pensions for urban and rural residents has been raised from 55 yuan, 70 yuan, and 88 yuan per month to 93 yuan in 2020 since 2009, but this standard is relatively low.
In cities, the monthly per capita pension of enterprise employees has also increased from 1,686 yuan per month in 2012 to 2,900 yuan in 2020.
This standard ensures that the basic living problem is not big, but it still cannot keep up with the charging standard of nursing homes.
Taking Beijing as an example, if the elderly can take care of themselves, it will cost about 5,000 yuan per month in a nursing home to be admitted to an ordinary public nursing home; if they become disabled later, the cost will rise to 10,000 yuan.
According to this standard, 70% of the elderly in Beijing with a total monthly income of less than 5,000 yuan do not have the possibility to enter the elderly care institutions.
The existence of a huge gap in pensions, the huge gap between regions, and the sustainability of pensions brought about by them have received a lot of attention in recent years.
Therefore, China's pension problem has both actual pressure and future pressure, and some problems are still developing. The pension is not enough. If the scammers get another share, it will undoubtedly make things worse.
The center has been trying to find a way to solve the problem.
On November 24, 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Work on Aging in the New Era", proposing to improve the elderly care service system, innovate the home and community elderly care service model, based on home care, through new construction, renovation, leasing, etc. Ways to improve community elderly care service capabilities; to further standardize the development of institutional elderly care, all localities should develop institutional elderly care through direct construction, entrusted operation, purchase of services, and encouragement of social investment.
In addition, it is also necessary to study and formulate management policies for the prepaid service fees of elderly care institutions to strictly prevent misappropriation of money and fraud in the name of elderly care institutions; establish a list system of basic elderly care services, and provide classified services for different elderly groups such as health, disability, and economic difficulties. Appropriate services such as old-age security, life care, rehabilitation care, social assistance, etc.; improve the multi-level old-age security system, and gradually realize the full coverage of the legal personnel of the basic old-age insurance.
"Resolutely cut off the black hand reaching out to the 'money bag' of the elderly"
This time, 12 ministries and commissions participated in a special campaign that lasted for half a year, starting from the fields and links involved in pension fraud, and each ministries and commissions have their own priorities.
The focus of this investigation by the public security department is, firstly, "big" cases. The Ministry of Public Security requires the Ministry of Public Security to list and supervise a number of major cases with serious and bad influence. Accumulate cases and hunt down fugitive suspects.
In addition, it is necessary to investigate the flow of funds of the criminal suspects to the end, and make every effort to recover the stolen goods and restore the losses.
Both the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court have published typical cases of pension fraud, covering the key areas of this rectification, including the use of the Internet to induce the elderly to consume and invest; false propaganda in the name of pension in the sale of commercial housing; fraud in the fields of tourism and art business for the elderly problems; fraudulent issues such as food and health products.
There is also a key point in this rectification, that is, the fraud of pension apartments.
When the national special office held the second departmental meeting at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on June 30, the relevant person in charge said that it is absolutely not allowed to use the "elderly house" to deceive the elderly.
It is necessary to clarify the approval level for real estate companies and intermediaries to publicize the content of house sales, and to clarify supervision responsibilities in accordance with the requirements of "who approves and is responsible". If no false publicity is found to cause the elderly to be deceived, they must be held accountable.
Relevant staff members of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development told China News Weekly that in addition to the above-mentioned elderly housing issues, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has focused on two main rectifications. The act of posting advertisements for elderly care products on the street.
The civil affairs department has carried out a review of various elderly care service institutions and unregistered elderly care service establishments.
According to the materials provided by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to China News Weekly, as of the end of June, local civil affairs departments have basically achieved full coverage of stock inspections.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs also conducts an inductive analysis of various problem clues, and summarizes key information such as the geographical distribution, behavioral characteristics, and fund-raising methods of pension fraud, so as to deeply understand the causes and laws of such fraud, and carry out targeted rectification.
In the field of aged food and health products, the State Administration for Market Regulation has dealt with a number of emerging problems, rectified a number of enterprises with irregular operations, and investigated and dealt with a number of illegal acts. "The clues of "magic medicine" false and illegal advertisement cases have been supervised three times.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism focuses on investigating the fraud, illegal fund-raising, illegal pyramid schemes and other art market related to pension fraud in the name of art business, and travel agencies inducing the elderly to "consume" in the form of prepaid cards, membership fees, wealth management products, etc." At the same time, strictly investigate issues involving the rights and interests of the elderly, such as operating travel agency business without permission, and "unreasonably low-cost travel".
The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, where the national special office is located, is mainly responsible for the overall promotion, coordination and supervision of special operations, including vertical and horizontal levels. At the vertical level, it dispatches an inspection team to the provincial level to supervise the rectification work. The inspection team It will listen to the reports of the relevant departments at the provincial level on the rectification situation, analyze the existing problems, and provide guidance on the next steps.
The inspection team is usually led by a deputy director of the special office, with the participation of relevant ministries and commissions.
At the horizontal level, the main person in charge of the national special office will conduct research on relevant ministries and commissions, and hold a special meeting on rectification, usually in the form of a departmental meeting.
The State Special Office has gone to the State Administration for Market Regulation, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and other ministries and commissions for consultations, and will go to other relevant ministries and commissions in the future.
At the special action promotion meeting held by the national special office on May 7, Chen Yixin, secretary-general of the Central Political and Legal Committee and director of the national special office, said on the one hand that the special campaign had a good start, and at the same time pointed out that five types of emerging problems should be prevented during the transition. Including to prevent the crackdown from being too loud, to prevent the quality and efficiency of clue verification, to prevent the rectification from being in-depth, to prevent the propaganda from being insufficiently launched, and to prevent the promotion of unsatisfactory timeliness and other issues.
He said that if the elderly are uneasy, the family will be uneasy, and if the family is uneasy, the society will be uneasy. Therefore, it is necessary to "make careful plans, recover assets and restore losses to the maximum extent, strictly prevent secondary risks, and resolutely guard the bottom line of no major mass incidents." Black hands to the elderly 'money bag'."
"China News Weekly" Issue 26, 2022
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