From January to September this year, 689,000 criminal cases of telecommunications network fraud were investigated and handled; 31,000 suspects of telecommunications fraud were handed over to China in northern Myanmar; 13.89 million people were dissuaded from meeting and 328.8 billion yuan of funds involved in the cases were urgently intercepted......
In the face of the extremely large number of cases and the people's hatred of the crime of wire fraud, in 2023, all regions and departments will adhere to the rule of law, multi-party linkage, and comprehensive policies, and have achieved remarkable results in cracking down on governance. The reporter sorted out this.
Aspect 1: Northern Myanmar handed over 31,000 suspects of wire fraud to China
At present, super-large criminal groups under the guise of "industrial parks" and "science and technology parks" are entrenched outside the country, forming a huge criminal network of fraud, which has become a "cancer" that must be eradicated in the fight against illegal and criminal acts of wire fraud.
Since September this year, under the command and deployment of the Ministry of Public Security and the Yunnan Provincial Public Security Department, public security organs in Xishuangbanna, Pu'er, Lincang and other places have carried out border police and law enforcement cooperation with relevant local law enforcement departments in Myanmar and carried out a series of crackdown actions.
Ming Guoping, Ming Julan, and Ming Zhenzhen, the important leaders of the telefraud criminal syndicate in the Kokang Autonomous Region of northern Myanmar, were successfully arrested and handed over to our public security organs, Ming Xuechang committed suicide in fear of crime, a large number of overseas fraud dens were successfully eradicated, and more than 10 important leaders of the telecommunications fraud syndicate were publicly wanted...... A series of measures have dealt a severe blow to the arrogance of overseas fraud syndicates.
Up to now, the relevant local law enforcement departments in northern Myanmar have handed over a total of 31,000 suspects of wire fraud to our side, including 63 behind-the-scenes "financiers", organizational leaders and backbones, and 1,531 online fugitives.
From January to October this year, procuratorial organs across the country prosecuted more than 34,000 suspects of wire fraud, an increase of nearly 52% year-on-year.
Zhang Xiaojin, director of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said that the political and legal organs have recently launched a key crackdown on cross-border wire fraud criminal groups, and a large number of people engaged in fraud crimes abroad have been arrested and returned to China, and the number of wire fraud cases prosecuted will continue to rise in the coming period.
Overseas arrests have also led to a decline in the number of wire fraud cases in some areas. Beginning in August this year, the number of cases in Haikou City, Hainan Province, has dropped year-on-year for four consecutive months, with the average daily number of cases dropping to single digits; in Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province, the number of cases dropped markedly in September and October this year, with the average number of cases per day dropping from more than 30 to more than 10.
"Since the beginning of this year, the number of wire fraud cases has decreased by 17.6% year-on-year, and the number of criminal suspects arrested has increased by 5.6% year-on-year. Wang Dawei, head of the anti-fraud center of the Tongliao City Public Security Bureau in Inner Mongolia, said that the Ministry of Public Security organized a crackdown on wire fraud crimes involving China in northern Myanmar, which led to a continuous decline in the number of wire fraud cases in the city, and a significant increase in the number of suspects involved in overseas cases.
On August 26, 2023, at Yangon International Airport in Myanmar, five suspects of telecom fraud were handed over to the Chinese police working group. Xinhua News Agency (Photo courtesy of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar)
Aspect 2: Administrative penalties were imposed on 210,500 people in accordance with the law
The Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Law came into force on December 1, 2022, providing strong legal support for cracking down on telecommunications fraud. The reporter learned from an interview with the Haikou Municipal Public Security Bureau that after the introduction of the Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Law, the rate of criminal compulsory measures in local telecommunications fraud cases dropped from 48% last year to 33%, while the administrative penalty rate increased from 5.8% last year to 27%.
"Administrative penalties have formed a strong deterrent to those who organize, plan, implement, or participate in wire fraud activities if the circumstances are minor and do not constitute a crime. Huang Yuewen, a police officer from the Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Center of the Haikou Municipal Public Security Bureau, said.
Over the past year, in accordance with the Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Law, the public security organs have imposed administrative penalties on 210,500 people, mainly targeting illegal acts such as the illegal manufacture, sale, and use of black market equipment such as GOIP and "cat pools", the illegal sale, rental, and lending of telephone cards, bank accounts, payment accounts, and Internet accounts to provide support or assistance for the implementation of wire fraud activities, as well as providing assistance in real-name verification and opening cards and accounts with fake identities.
The administrative punishment measures stipulated in the Anti-Telecom Network Fraud Law have effectively punished the relevant illegal acts of "black and gray industry", and although the number of crimes prosecuted by procuratorial organs for aiding information network criminal activities is still running at a high level, the increase has gradually slowed down. According to data from the Supreme People's Procuratorate, from January to October this year, procuratorial organs across the country prosecuted more than 115,000 people for aiding information network criminal activities, an increase of nearly 13% year-on-year and a year-on-year decrease of 2.2 percentage points.
Aspect 3: Joint disciplinary measures are being formulated
In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Anti-Telecommunications Network Fraud Law, in November this year, the Ministry of Public Security, together with relevant competent departments, drafted and completed the "Measures for Joint Disciplinary Action against Telecommunications Network Fraud and Related Violations and Crimes (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)", and released it to the public for comments.
The Draft for Comments provides for punishment measures such as financial punishments, telecommunications network punishments, credit punishments, and inclusion in the Basic Financial Credit Information Database, and the period of punishment is 3 years for those who are pursued for criminal responsibility for committing wire fraud and related crimes, and 2 years for those who have been identified by a public security organ at or above the districted city level.
"The Draft Punishment Measures for Solicitation of Comments lists who are to be punished and what conduct to be punished, and the main purpose is to make the public clearly aware of the legal responsibility that will be borne for committing wire fraud and related illegal and criminal acts, so as to achieve the effect of warning education and crime prevention. The relevant person in charge of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security introduced.
"Since the 'broken card' operation, there has been a 'card shortage' in some fraud dens, resulting in some people taking risks to rent out and sell personal bank cards and phone cards to wire fraud criminals due to the temptation of profits. Sun Wei, executive deputy director of the Investigation Center of the Jiaxing Municipal Public Security Bureau, believes that the introduction of joint disciplinary measures will help build social creditworthiness, warn people who rent and lend and sell personal "two cards" for greedy interests, and prevent them from becoming "accomplices" in the crime of wire fraud.
In order to reflect the appropriateness of punishment, the Draft for Comment provides that the balance of the payment account may be transferred out or withdrawn, a telephone card that is not involved in the case may be retained for the subject of punishment, and the basic financial and communication services of the subject of punishment may be retained, to ensure that their basic living needs are met.
On December 20, 2023, at the Red Property Service Center of Dongjie Community, Chengguan Town, Baofeng County, Henan Province, the community police introduced the knowledge of preventing telecom fraud to residents. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Lu Peng
Aspect 4: Collaborative governance and source governance have reached a new level
On February 20 this year, the Kunming Anti-Fraud Center received a report from the public that they may have received a fraudulent call. The police officer immediately pushed the number to China Telecom Kunming Branch for inquiry. The telecommunications department fed back the account opening information of the number within 3 minutes. At the same time, the Yunnan Provincial Public Security Department also pushed a fixed-line clue, both numbers pointing to a hotel in Chenggong District, Kunming City. The Kunming Municipal Public Security Bureau took immediate action and arrested 4 suspects, seized 3 GOIP devices and 3 routers.
"Thanks to the establishment of a working mechanism for rapid verification of clues related to fraudulent phone calls between the public security organs and enterprises such as telecommunications, China Unicom, and mobile companies, we can strive to discover and eradicate illegal dens in the shortest possible time. Xiong Meng, a police officer from the Kunming Anti-Fraud Center, said.
In order to cope with the continuous iteration and escalation of new tricks and new methods of electronic fraud, all regions and departments have strengthened coordinated governance and continuously explored new tactics and techniques.
At the national level, over the past year, the governance at the source has been deepened and the overall joint force has been continuously strengthened: the Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference of the State Council on Cracking Down on New Illegal Crimes in Telecommunications Networks has carried out dynamic listing and rectification in eight key areas involved in fraud where the problem of source control is prominent People's Bank of China......
Chen Tianhao, deputy director of the Center for the Study of the Government Legal System of Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management, believes that over the past year, cross-field and cross-departmental cross-cooperation in cracking down on governance has been deepened and solidified. In the future, the construction of a long-term and continuous collaborative governance mechanism will play a vital role in continuously adapting to the evolution and upgrading of criminal methods and preventing and curbing the illegal crime of wire fraud.