Tighten the cage of the system, so that "crime" and "stolen goods" have nowhere to hide
The procuratorial organs punish the crime of money laundering in accordance with the law and ensure financial security
□ reporter Dong Fanchao
Faced with the police interrogation for the first time, Xiao Qiang was full of confidence: "I don't know what law I violated..." But Xiao Qiang never expected that the investigators had collected relevant evidence in place before the arrest, and the facts of his crime of helping Dahua, a criminal who illegally absorbed public deposits, to launder money have been ironclad. Recently, after the People's Procuratorate of Jingjiang City, Jiangsu Province initiated a public prosecution, Xiaoqiang was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment and fined for money laundering.
It turned out that Xiaoqiang had previously spent a lot of money selling the luxury car purchased with illegal fund-raising - first selling the luxury car to buyers from other provinces through an online second-hand platform, and then instructing his wife to open a new bank card to receive the purchase of the car.
"Those who illegally absorb public deposits illegally absorb funds from unspecified targets in society, putting public property at high risk and seriously affecting social stability. In this case, Xiaoqiang knew that Dahua was arrested for fund-raising and that the public security organs were recovering his property, but still sold the car purchased with the raised funds for cash, and should be investigated for criminal responsibility for the crime of money laundering. Xue Fei, the prosecutor handling the case, said.
Intensifying the crackdown on money laundering crimes is an important measure to curb all kinds of serious predicate crimes and improve the effectiveness of recovering stolen goods and recovering losses. According to data recently disclosed by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, from January to September this year, procuratorates across the country prosecuted a total of 1,9 people for money laundering, an increase of 1718.14% year-on-year. The predicate crimes involved are mainly concentrated in drugs, corruption and bribery, undermining the order of financial management, financial fraud and smuggling. 8,62336 people were prosecuted for the crime of covering up or concealing criminal proceeds or the proceeds of criminal proceeds, an increase of 92.7% year-on-year.
In recent years, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Public Security and other relevant departments, has launched a three-year action plan (2022-2024) to combat money laundering crimes, continue to strengthen the punishment of money laundering crimes, and effectively use anti-money laundering work to curb upstream crimes, promote the recovery of stolen goods and losses, and serve to ensure financial security.
Accurately apply the law to combat self-money laundering crimes
Recently, the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate released a number of typical cases of cracking down on money laundering crimes, among which the case of Zhao's fund-raising fraud and money laundering disclosed is a typical case of self-money laundering.
From March 2020 to September 3, Zhao falsely claimed that he had obtained the land use right of a village in the name of the company, and illegally raised more than 2021 yuan in the name of investing in the construction of an industrial park in the village.
In order to "launder" the fund-raising funds, Zhao used the six "shell companies" under his actual control to transfer part of the fund-raising funds from the collection account to the "shell company" account under his actual control to pay rebates, commissions, rent, personal consumption, etc. However, it claims that the industrial park it plans to invest in and build has only stayed in the stage of visiting and inspecting for many years, and has not carried out substantive work such as approval and project approval. Not long ago, Zhao was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by the court and fined.
"Self-money laundering" refers to the act of "laundering" the proceeds of crime and the proceeds thereof after the perpetrator has committed the predicate offence in order to legalize them. Amendment (11) to the Criminal Law amends the provisions on the crime of money laundering to include the act of "self-money laundering" in the scope of application of the provisions.
Ye Ping, deputy director of the Fourth Procuratorate Department of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate, analyzed and pointed out that Zhao used the "shell company" account as a "transit station" to transfer funds, which seemed to use the raised funds for production and business activities, and actually used them to pay rebates, commissions, wages, rents and other company expenses and personal consumption, and had the criminal intent to cover up and conceal criminal gains, and constituted the crime of money laundering in accordance with the provisions of Amendment (11) to the Criminal Law.
Yuan Shuo, procurator of the Second Procuratorate Department of the Xicheng District People's Procuratorate in Beijing, believes that the key to judging whether the perpetrator of the predicate crime is involved in money laundering lies in whether his behavior can achieve the result of covering up the source of the stolen money and changing the nature of the stolen money. If the perpetrator uses the illegal gains to purchase securities, insurance, or other investment and wealth management activities, and then "bleaches" the illegal gains in the form of proceeds, it constitutes the crime of money laundering.
"The criminalization of self-money laundering provides a strong legal guarantee for maintaining national financial security, and fully demonstrates the determination of the judicial authorities to curb the upstream and downstream crimes of money laundering crimes." Yuan Shuo said.
Strictly implement the "one case, two investigations" case-handling mechanism
In recent years, with the application of modern information technology such as online payment and blockchain, various new money laundering methods have emerged. These illegal means use massive fund accounts to quickly transfer funds at multiple levels, which is more technical and concealed, and brings greater challenges to the detection, investigation and punishment of crimes.
In their work, procuratorial organs in all localities have adhered to the simultaneous review of predicate crimes and money laundering crimes, continued to increase the intensity of prosecution of money laundering crimes, curbed upstream crimes, and promoted the recovery of stolen goods and losses.
The Beijing Municipal Procuratorate has formulated the "Implementation Plan for Comprehensively Deepening the Anti-Money Laundering Work of the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate" and other documents, requiring the city's procuratorial organs to strictly implement the "one case, two investigations" mechanism when handling seven types of predicate crime cases.
"The predicate criminal case undertaker will handle the downstream criminal case, and the financial procuratorial office will assist in the research and judgment of the clues of the upstream criminal case transferred from the transfer, and report the clues that are indeed money laundering cases to the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate after filling in the ledger, and the case will still be handled by the original department, and the joint meeting of prosecutors can be initiated for discussion when problems are encountered." Wang Peilin, deputy director of the Second Procuratorate Department of the People's Procuratorate of Dongcheng District, Beijing, said that the procuratorate not only strictly implements the mechanism of "double investigation in one case" and "simultaneous review" in the coordination and cooperation of various departments, but also dynamically tracks the whole process from the supervision and investigation of the case filing by the investigation organs, the follow-up of money laundering clues on a regular basis, to the review and prosecution stage of whether the money laundering involves serious circumstances and whether the criminal suspect denies guilt and accepts punishment. At the same time, the procuratorate regards the discovery of clues on money laundering crimes and the quality and efficiency of case handling as important indicators for the evaluation of procurators, forcing and guiding procurators to be good at discovering clues and being proficient in analysis and judgment.
In order to realize the implementation of "one case and two investigations" for upstream financial crimes involving money laundering crimes, the Hubei Provincial Procuratorate has done a solid job in returning supplementary investigations and self-supplementary investigations through methods such as case filing supervision, supervision of investigation activities, and early intervention, especially for cases where the full amount of stolen goods and losses has not been recovered, and has carried out a solid clean-up of the flow of funds involved in the case, and has worked with the public security organs and the People's Bank of China to analyze and judge the overseas remittances, frequent transactions, and large-amount cash withdrawals in the transfer details, and thoroughly investigate the relevant criminal clues. At the same time, the Hubei Provincial Procuratorate has added a "Suspected Money Laundering Crime Card Item" to the investigation and supervision platform, integrating the punishment of money laundering crimes into daily case handling, and urging case-handling personnel to implement the responsibility of money laundering crime verification.
Improve the linkage mechanism to form a joint force for crackdown and prevention
"We have upgraded and improved our internal anti-money laundering system and strengthened the monitoring and management of illegal operations on money laundering. The legal awareness of employees continues to increase, and when they find that a large amount of funds are transferred in and out of their personal accounts, they will take the initiative to investigate and understand..."Recently, the relevant person in charge of a bank in Xiangzhou District, Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, said to the prosecutor of the Xiangzhou District People's Procuratorate who came to pay a return visit.
Promoting anti-money laundering involves the functions and responsibilities of multiple departments, and it is more necessary to cooperate and cooperate to form a joint force to combat it. To this end, the Hubei Provincial People's Procuratorate has actively carried out communication and exchanges with the Wuhan Branch of the People's Bank of China, the Provincial Public Security Department and other relevant departments, established and improved mechanisms for clue investigation and investigation, and case-handling coordination, and carried out in-depth arrangements for anti-money laundering work.
After the establishment of the mechanism, the Hubei Provincial Procuratorate carried out a three-level linkage of "substantive supervision and case handling" anti-money laundering practical training, and cooperated with five departments including the Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision to carry out seminars, exchanges, case studies and other training close to the front line around the theme of "combating money laundering crimes".
"We regard anti-money laundering work as an important part of the procuratorial organs' services to ensure financial security, further improve the working mechanisms for the transfer of clues and case handling, and continuously strengthen the fight against money laundering crimes." The relevant person in charge of the Hubei Provincial Procuratorate said.
At the "Inspection and Finance" open day held by the Dongcheng District Procuratorate of Beijing Municipality not long ago with the theme of "Combating Money Laundering Crimes and Maintaining Financial Security", procurators gave on-the-spot lectures on "Discovery and Examination Practice of Money Laundering Clues" and other courses, and discussed issues such as the distinction between predicate crimes and accomplices in the fight against money laundering crimes, and the definition of combined punishment for multiple crimes.
"The handling of money laundering cases involves issues such as financial supervision, the performance of duties by financial institutions, and the connection between executions, and we will pass on the experience extracted from the handling of cases to the front line of anti-money laundering business of financial institutions in a timely manner, so as to promote relevant institutions to better perform their duties." Wang Peilin said that by carrying out a series of related activities, the court has made efforts to expand the punishment of money laundering crimes from individual cases to financial governance.
In order to lead and raise the awareness of anti-money laundering in the whole society, procuratorial organs in all regions have carried out legal popularization publicity in conjunction with relevant cases, revealing to the public the social harms of money laundering crimes and the legal consequences of participating in money laundering crimes, guiding the public to improve their ability to identify all kinds of money laundering behaviors, consciously resist them, and jointly weave a "prevention and control net" for money laundering crimes. (Rule of Law Daily)