A group of middle-aged and elderly people with different local accents
One after another, he came to a community hospital for physical examination
Answering routine questions from health care providers is hesitant
Having an underlying medical condition but not buying medication from the hospital
After the check-up, they flocked to a clinic near the hospital
Unlike ordinary MLM, network MLM is no longer about locking people in a small dark room to collectively take big classes, hitting ** to pull people's heads to acquaintances, but through WeChat groups** and other ways to carry out network promotion, Wu and others deceived 1 in just 3 months600 million yuan, and most of the people involved in pyramid marketing are sick middle-aged and elderly people. In handling cases, we uphold the principle of cracking down strictly and actively recovering stolen goods and recovering losses, accurately distinguishing between organizers, leaders and participants, and ensuring that the punishment is appropriate for their crimes and achieving good results. On January 9, when the reporter interviewed the Licheng District Procuratorate of Jinan City, Shandong Province, Wang Shudong, the chief prosecutor of the procuratorate, introduced the online pyramid scheme case in the name of free stem cell injection.
From December 2021 to January 2024, after more than two years, the dust finally settled on the case, and the last defendant, Wang, was sentenced to six months of detention on January 31, 2024. The Licheng District Procuratorate of Jinan City handled the 19 criminal suspects transferred by the public security organs for review and prosecution in different layers, did not prosecute 7 people, and prosecuted 12 people. The court sentenced Wu and 12 others to criminal detention ranging from six months to nine years in prison for organizing and leading pyramid schemes, and each imposed fines ranging from 30,000 yuan to 1.6 million yuan, and confiscated more than 9,300 yuan of seized funds.
The community hospital was suddenly busy
In November 2021, in Tangye Street, Licheng District, Jinan City, a community hospital that has always been a good place suddenly became busy. A group of middle-aged and elderly people with different local accents came for physical examinations one after another, and the people who led the team were responsible for making appointments for physical examinations and receiving physical examination reports, just like tour guides with tour groups. The mysterious behavior of the middle-aged and elderly people in the physical examination, the hesitation in answering the routine questions of the medical staff, and the fact that they have underlying diseases but do not buy medicine from the hospital have attracted the attention of the community police.
Community police found that people after medical examinations poured into a clinic near the hospital. The police have an impression of this clinic, and it has been warned by the Licheng District Public Security Bureau and the Market Supervision Bureau for injecting stem cells without qualifications. As a result, the police entered the clinic in disguise and found table cards, ornaments, and cups printed with police badges on the second floor of the clinic.
In order to avoid startling the snake, the police returned to the police station and fed back the clues to the petition for filing. The Licheng Public Security Bureau immediately set up a case handling team to file a case for investigation, summoned the personnel and physical examination personnel who injected stem cells through infusion on the second floor of the clinic in accordance with the law, and seized the items at the scene. **Through interrogation, it was learned that this clinic is just a foothold, and there is someone else behind it.
The Licheng District Procuratorate was invited to intervene in advance to guide the investigation in accordance with the law, and to put forward opinions on evidence collection. After investigation and analysis, starting from December 13, 2021, the public security organs have successively closed the net and arrested a total of 53 criminal suspects. On January 28, 2022, the Licheng District Procuratorate approved the arrest of four main suspects including Wu, and the truth about the use of stem cell pyramid schemes surfaced.
Free injections have additional conditions
Wu is the actual controller of a shield company involved in the case, and he is also the ringleader of this stem cell network pyramid marketing organization. After graduating from university, Wu worked in a factory, and later resigned to go to the sea to do business, because he was so ambitious, he still achieved nothing at the age of 50, and he was eager to get rich overnight.
In 2018, by chance, Wu, who suffers from diabetes, was introduced by a friend to inject stem cells several times. In 2020, Wu and his friends planned to use stem cell business to carry out a "big health project", and contacted a company in Jinan to provide stem cell preparations.
In July 2021, Li came to Jinan from other places for treatment of breast cancer, and during his stay in the hospital, he accidentally saw the stem cell immunity** advertised by a shield company on the Internet, claiming that the injection of stem cells can lead to cancer. Li was anxious to treat the disease and contacted the company to buy 3 injections of stem cell preparations for 20,000 yuan per injection. After the injection of stem cells, Li felt that his body had improved and joined a shield company in September 2021.
In September 2021, in order to further stimulate sales, Wu began to carry out extensive false propaganda on the Internet, claiming that the company's "big health project" was a project supported by funds allocated by the state, exaggerating the efficacy of stem cells, proposing a free injection strategy, and successively carrying out offline training in Beijing, Jinan, Shandong, Nanning, Guangxi, Yichun, Jiangxi and other places, and also set up WeChat groups to organize online training. At the same time, the company involved in the case operated WeChat *** for publicity and developed the Silver Shield platform 20 system management members.
In order to attract more members, Li and others appeared to share their personal experiences, and showed the voices, **and** of cancer patients with better stem cell injection effects, including Li. At the same time, Wu gave full play to his speech ability, promised high allowances and free pensions, and let members take the promotion of stem cells as a career, and developed more than 40,000 members in just three months.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. After investigation, it was found that Wu proposed that there were layers of additional conditions for free injection of stem cells. After the members pay a deposit of 1,000 yuan, develop 18 members and these members also pay the deposit, wait in line for injection, and the deposit of 1,000 yuan will be refunded after the physical examination is completed.
Wu also proposed a promotion reward system: when the development of downline personnel reaches 100 people, members have a level, can get management allowances from the company, according to the promotion performance, members are divided into V1 to V5 five levels, corresponding to 5% to 9% management allowance. Wu used the management allowance as a bait to encourage the participants to continuously develop their downline personnel.
More than 9,600 yuan of funds involved in the case were frozen
Liu Ling, director of the Second Procuratorial Department of the Licheng District Procuratorate, found through reading the file in the early intervention stage that the company involved in the case has a strict organizational structure and a clear division of labor, from training lecturers, online publicity to statistics and issuing management allowances, to transporting stem cells, arranging physical examinations, and injections, all of which are responsible for special personnel. For this reason, the prosecutor proposed that judging from factors such as entry fees, setting up hierarchies, and pulling heads, it was determined that the crime in this case should be the crime of organizing and leading pyramid selling activities, not the crime of fraud. Because this case is a new type of online pyramid scheme, and the use of contactless and decentralized network means makes it very easy to destroy electronic evidence, the procuratorate recommends that the public security organs promptly seize the mobile phones and computers used by the persons involved in the case, and extract and fix the data of WeChat mini programs, online platforms, computers, and mobile phones.
After analyzing and judging the electronic evidence, the core personnel, division of responsibilities, hierarchical status, development model, reward model and other criminal organizational structures and case context of the MLM organization gradually became clear.
From February to March 2022, the procuratorate held several joint meetings with the public security organs, and after discussions, the two sides reached a consensus and formulated a strategy for handling the matter in a hierarchical manner. Based on the criminal suspects' conduct, subjective knowledge, and criminal records, the public security organs successively transferred 19 criminal suspects for examination and prosecution.
In order to evade and evade detection, Wu used other people's ID cards to register and set up more than a dozen companies for collecting deposits and issuing management allowances. Liu Ling said that the procuratorate actively communicated with the public security organs, promptly froze more than 30 accounts involved in the case and more than 9,600 yuan of funds involved in the case, and at the same time sorted out and produced dozens of pages of detailed lists of assets involved in the case, and improved the evidence one by one. For the property involved in the case, the procuratorate recommends that in the case where the criminal suspect cannot effectively explain the legality, the above-mentioned property should be uniformly identified as illegal gains, recovered and confiscated in accordance with law, and the personal lawful property should be returned in accordance with law.
After digging deep and carefully investigating, the prosecutor handling the case found that a car worth 1.3 million yuan under the name of Wu's son was parked in Shenzhen, Guangdong, and was purchased with illegally obtained money, and asked the investigators of the public security organs to rush to another place in time to seize it, ensuring that the money and property involved in the case were disposed of in accordance with the law.
Accurately identify the principal and accessory offenders and ensure that the punishment is appropriate
Bao Yanling, assistant procurator of the Second Procuratorate Department of the procuratorate, told reporters that after discussion at the joint meeting of prosecutors, everyone unanimously agreed that the 19 criminal suspects who were transferred for examination and prosecution should be dealt with at different levels, and that the organizers and leaders should be determined according to the management level, responsibilities, and roles played by these people in pyramid marketing activities, and the main and accessory offenders should be distinguished. In the end, the court decided to prosecute 12 people in batches, and planned not to prosecute 7 people, and held a hearing.
At the public hearing, a hearing officer lamented: "In order to inject stem cells for free, he has become a tool for pyramid schemes." The procuratorate accurately identified the organizers and leaders, and explained the law to those who were not prosecuted, so that they could know, understand, and abide by the law, and personally feel the temperature of the law. ”
On October 24, 2022, the court made a statutory decision not to prosecute the three criminal suspects; On April 25 and September 26, decisions were made not to prosecute three criminal suspects whose circumstances were relatively minor and did not require criminal punishment; On November 27, a decision was made not to prosecute one suspect in doubt.
In order to punish crimes and preserve judicial fairness, case-handling procurators are to explain the law and reason on the basis of the facts and evidence of the crime, and actively promote criminal suspects to voluntarily sign plea affidavit. From February 28 to November 2, 2023, the procuratorate prosecuted 12 suspects in the case to the court in batches on suspicion of organizing and leading pyramid schemes. As of January 31, 2024, Wu and 12 other defendants were sentenced by the court to sentences ranging from six months of criminal detention to nine years in prison. Defendant Su was dissatisfied and appealed.
On June 8, 2023, the prosecutors handling the case jointly ** the case.
Two years ago, Su was sentenced to criminal punishment for the crime of embezzlement and the crime of organizing and leading pyramid marketing activities. This time, he again committed the crime of organizing and leading pyramid marketing activities, and directly and indirectly recruited more than 10,000 members in the pyramid marketing organization.
Considering that Su X pleaded guilty and accepted punishment during the investigation stage, was willing to return his illegal gains, and that he committed a crime for the elderly and sincerely repented, the procuratorate put forward a sentencing recommendation for leniency. On August 31, 2023, the Licheng District Court adopted the sentencing recommendation and sentenced Su to two years in prison and a fine in accordance with the law.
Unexpectedly, Su actually pleaded guilty and accepted punishment and then repented, trying to use the "appeal without increasing the sentence" to achieve the goal of commuting the sentence, and appealed on the grounds that the sentence was too heavy.
After the first-instance verdict, an appeal was filed without new facts and evidence, reflecting that Su did not sincerely admit guilt and repented, and it was a false confession. Liu Ling pointed out that such speculative behavior will damage the credibility of the judiciary. On September 14, 2023, the procuratorate filed a protest with the Jinan Intermediate People's Court in accordance with the law. On December 29, 2023, the Jinan Intermediate People's Court adopted the protest opinion, revoked the original judgment, and sentenced Su to three years in prison for organizing and leading pyramid marketing activities.
On September 20, 2023, the case was heard.
The prosecutor handling the case reminded that pyramid schemes are constantly changing their appearance and renovating their tricks, but their false appearance can never hide the truth. The public should enhance their ability to identify and guard against online pyramid schemes, consciously resist pyramid schemes, stay away from pyramid schemes, and avoid taking the evil road of harming others and themselves.
Delegate Reviews
Deputy to the National People's Congress
Deputy Director of Agricultural Technology Extension Center of Jining City, Shandong Province
Yu Anling
In recent years, pyramid marketing activities have been constantly changing their methods, and the methods of illegal and criminal pyramid marketing activities have become increasingly concealed and diversified, especially the pyramid marketing methods carried out by using new technologies have spread rapidly, caused deep harm, and caused serious losses to the property of the people. In handling the above-mentioned cases, the procuratorial organs have fully implemented the criminal policy of blending leniency and severity, accurately grasped the identification of the leaders and organizers of pyramid marketing activities, and handled them in accordance with the law.
In the case of organizing and leading pyramid schemes, there are a large number of people involved, a wide range of personnel, and various methods of online pyramid schemes, so procuratorial organs need to develop ideas for handling cases, make reasonable use of new technical means, and clarify the organizational structure of pyramid schemes; With regard to the issue of dividing organizers, leaders, and ordinary participants, determine whether the persons involved in the case are organizers or leaders based on their different levels of management, responsibilities, and so forth in the pyramid marketing activities, and then determine the principal and accessory offenders based on the differences in their status and the harmful roles they play, and handle the criminal suspects at different levels, so as to achieve precise strikes and punishments for their crimes.
Organizing and leading pyramid schemes often involves complex people, and the degree of social concern is high, so how to not only crack down on crime, but also resolve social contradictions is a huge challenge faced by case-handling personnel. In handling this case, the procurator classified the persons involved in the case according to their status and duties in the pyramid scheme activities, and at the same time considered the motives and economic ability of the persons involved in the case, and finally determined the criminal responsibility that each person involved in the case should bear.
*: Shandong Internet Police.