Author丨Tang Jing.
Editor丨Li Yumin.
According to CCTV reports, Qingdao ** and the Qingdao Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently jointly cracked a large underground money bank caseThe amount involved in the case was as high as 15.8 billion yuan, and 74 criminal suspects were arrested, involving 17 provinces and municipalities directly under the central government. At present, the case has been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.
More than 1,000 accounts have an average daily turnover of more than 3 million.
In November 2022, Qingdao ** received clues about suspicious transactions in the accounts of Jin and others, and after a preliminary investigation, the average daily turnover of more than 1,000 accounts was more than 3 million yuan, and the total transaction amount was as high as more than 2 billion yuan. These large sums of money have the characteristics of all-weather high-frequency operation, fast in and fast out, which has attracted the attention of the first.
According to Yang Yi, a case-handling officer of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau, these accounts are operated through online banking or mobile banking, and the network operation address is displayed overseas. However, none of the account holders have left the border. After investigation, only Jin's son stayed abroad for a long time, and it coincided with the network operation address, so it was inferred that Jin was the actual controller of these accounts.
* Through an in-depth investigation of the suspicious account, it was found that most of the people who remitted money to the account controlled by Jin had the experience of studying abroad or entering and leaving the country for multiple short-term periods, and his relevant accounts also showed that there were records of capital transactions with other suspected underground bank accounts in China.
According to Yang Yi, a case-handling officer of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau, it was determined that Jin was suspected of using the bank account under his control to provide illegal exchange services, and at the same time, there were transactions with other underground banks in China, which was suspected of illegal business crimes. **It was decided to file a case against Jin for investigation.
Helping underground banks to exchange money illegally
After investigation, it was found that Jin was not only suspected of underground bank transactions, but also remitted a large amount of funds in the account controlled by him to an account controlled by Li, who was engaged in overseas virtual currency transactions.
In order to comprehensively crack down on the upstream and downstream crimes involved in the underground money bank case, the case-handling personnel of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and the public security organs jointly obtained more than 20 million suspicious bank transaction records related to Jin, and sorted out thousands of suspicious accounts from them. These accounts are opened in more than 10 provinces and cities across the country, and the capital transaction volume exceeds 10 billion yuan.
Liu Cuili, deputy director of the Balance of Payments Division of the Qingdao Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said that a comprehensive use of a variety of analytical tools for data comparison found that a large amount of funds were transferred to multiple bank accounts controlled by a certain person in China, and these funds only went in and out.
* The account flow of Jin and Li was retrieved and found that there was an abnormality in the flow of funds between the two, and in addition, the investigators also dug up an illegal virtual currency trading gang headed by Li.
According to the director of the Political Department of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau, Li is an ordinary employee of a textile enterprise in a county-level city, but the capital flow of the third-party bank card associated with and controlled by his name is as high as more than 5 billion yuan, which is obviously inconsistent with his identity. After investigation, a large amount of evidence was obtained that Li illegally bought and sold virtual currency.
Virtual currency is a new form of currency based on Internet technology, which has the characteristics of decentralization and anonymity, and increases the difficulty of case detection due to its strong concealment. In view of the new characteristics of the case, ** adopted a variety of new research and judgment methods, and discovered more facts of Li's crime.
According to the director of the Political Department of the Economic Investigation Detachment of the Qingdao Municipal Public Security Bureau, it was found that Li's other identity was an acceptor specializing in the illegal purchase and sale of virtual currency. Through an overseas virtual currency trading platform, Li helped Jin convert a large amount of funds into virtual currencies such as Tether. Knowing that Jin was engaged in illegal and criminal activities of an underground bank, he still carried out virtual currency buying and selling business with him and helped the underground bank to illegally exchange money, which is already suspected of a crime.
Seventy-four suspects were arrested in half a month
According to the joint document issued by the People's Bank of China and other ten departments in 2021, in China, virtual currency does not have the same legal status as legal tender, and carrying out virtual currency-related business activities is illegal financial activities. Disrupting the economic and financial order, breeding fraud, pyramid schemes, and other illegal and criminal activities, seriously endangering the safety of the people's property.
Xu Xiao, a staff member of the Qingdao branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said that after the underground bank collects RMB from the "customer", it will buy virtual currency, and then sell the virtual currency through overseas trading platforms to obtain the foreign currency funds they need. This process enables the conversion of RMB and foreign currencies, which constitutes an illegal act of buying and selling foreign exchange.
After six months of investigation, the case-handling personnel concentrated on the deployment of the network collection operation after finding out the organizational structure, identity information, and activity patterns of the criminal gang. A total of 74 suspects in the same case were arrested in half a month. At the scene, the police seized a number of crime tools such as mobile phones, computers, and bank cards used by the suspects, and fixed relevant evidence in a timely manner. In the detention center, the suspect confessed to ** about the operation process.
Foreign exchange trading is required at designated venues
The suspect confessed that he made "this kind of exchange" to earn the exchange rate difference, and the profit was between 3,1000 and 5,1000. Underground banks not only undermine the economic and financial order and encourage upstream crimes, but also may expose the enterprises and individuals who do transactions with them to property losses and legal risks. According to the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Foreign Exchange Administration (hereinafter referred to as the "Foreign Exchange Administration Regulations"), the purchase and sale of foreign exchange must be carried out in places designated by the state, otherwise it is an illegal purchase and sale of foreign exchange, and the circumstances are serious and involve criminal offenses.
Article 45 of the Regulations on Foreign Exchange Administration stipulates that anyone who buys or sells foreign exchange without permission, buys or sells foreign exchange in disguise, buys and sells foreign exchange in disguise, or illegally introduces and trades foreign exchange in large amounts, shall be given a warning, confiscated the illegal gains, and imposed a fine of not more than 30% of the illegal amountwhere the circumstances are serious, a fine of between 30% and the equivalent of the illegal amount shall be imposed;where a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility is pursued in accordance with law.
Underground money banks are a kind of illegal financial organizations, and because of the concealment of their operations, they often become channels for smuggling, gambling, tax fraud, and other upstream crimes to transfer funds, undermine the healthy order of the foreign exchange market, and endanger China's financial security and social stability.
According to the data, in the first 11 months of this year, the Hui Police jointly cracked 120 cases of underground banks, 443 cases of illegal trading of foreign exchange by administrative counterparties, and 9 penalties were confiscated400 million yuan, effectively deterring illegal and criminal activities such as underground banks, and maintaining the healthy order of the foreign exchange market and the country's financial security.
How to distinguish between formal foreign exchange trading behavior and underground banks?According to the relevant regulations on foreign exchange management, enterprises and individuals can generally only purchase and settle foreign exchange in China at financial institutions that are qualified to settle and sell foreign exchange, and small-value exchange can also be carried out at approved individual domestic and foreign currency exchange licensing institutionsSettlement and purchase of foreign exchange outside the above-mentioned places are illegal transactions, and they are suspected of participating in underground bank transactions.
What are the common operations of underground banks?The first is cross-border matching, which realizes the substantive exchange and cross-border transfer of funds through the domestic delivery of RMB and overseas delivery of foreign currencyThe second is to construct transactions, using false and deceptive means to construct legal transaction forms, conceal illegal purposes, and realize cross-border transfer of funds;The third is other illegal business models, such as scalping foreign exchange, cash smuggling, overseas bank card withdrawals, and the use of virtual media (such as Bitcoin, Tether, game point cards, and game tokens) to achieve cross-border transfer of funds.
Zhang Zhaohui, deputy director of the Qingdao Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, reminded the general public and enterprises to stay away from underground banks, and if there is a need for foreign exchange exchange and settlement, remember to go to a legal institution with foreign exchange settlement and sales qualifications and approval. Do not covet the so-called "convenience" and "more appropriate exchange rate" and choose to carry out exchange and settlement through illegal institutions or private individuals.
The 21st Century Business Herald is synthesized from CCTV News, the official WeChat of the Beijing Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, etc.
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This issue is edited by Li Yutong.
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