Kunming Wuhua: Improve the evidence system
Comprehensively and accurately determine the facts of the crime
"When reviewing drug trafficking cases, we should abandon the 'case-by-case' mentality and ask ourselves, 'Where do the drugs come from?'" What are the habits of the suspects? Is everything missing? Recently, in an interview with reporters, Wu Yunfeng, procurator of the Wuhua District Procuratorate in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, talked about his feelings about handling a drug trafficking case.
The suspect in this drug trafficking case refused to admit guilt, and Wu Yunfeng found suspicious points from hundreds of pages of social software transfer records, guided the collection of evidence, and finally consolidated the evidence, and broke through the suspect with "zero confession". Based on the experience of handling cases where "long-term drug addicts may be suspected of allowing others to take drugs", Wu Yunfeng also found clues about the crime of drug buyers, and accurately prosecuted a criminal suspect who was missed.
This case made Wu Yunfeng fully realize that in order to achieve a precise crackdown on drug crimes, improving the evidence system and comprehensively and accurately determining the facts of the crime are the top priorities.
From nearly 400 pages of social media transfer records
Spot suspicious spots
In September 2023, the public security organs submitted a request to the Wuhua District Procuratorate for approval of Chen's arrest on suspicion of drug trafficking. Wu Yunfeng, the prosecutor in charge, found that Chen always refused to confess the facts of the crime, and the public security organs only identified Chen's drug trafficking in May 2023, and did not seize drugs at the scene.
Wu Yunfeng began to sort out the evidence in the case file, carefully checked the electronic evidence transferred with the case, and comprehensively combed through nearly 400 pages of social software transfer records, and found that the amount of social software transfer records of Chen and Li Moujia and other three people was mostly 700 yuan or 1,400 yuan, which was consistent with the characteristics of "Xiaoma" (a new type of synthetic drug) of about 70 yuan a piece, and drug buyers generally purchased 10 or 20 pills at a time.
"Is this just a coincidence, or is Chen's crime not limited to a drug trafficking case transferred by the public security organs for review and arrest?" Wu Yunfeng further interrogated Chen, ascertained the process of understanding Chen and the drug purchaser Li Moujia, and found that Chen may be suspected of drug trafficking many times by combing and comparing Chen's social software chat records and payment records.
In this regard, while approving the arrest of Chen, the Wuhua District Procuratorate requested the public security organs to re-analyze and sort out the common time points pointed to by Chen's mobile phone transfer records, communication records, and drug buyers' records, and guide the public security organs to re-verify the verbal evidence such as the type, quantity, location, and method of the drugs traded at the common time points, and actively guide the collection of evidence.
In November 2023, when the public security organs transferred the case to the Wuhua District Procuratorate for review and prosecution, only Chen was suspected of three drug trafficking.
Break through the "zero confession" suspect
"I'm not short of money, can I use drug trafficking?" "I lent them money to gamble, and they paid me back." …… Every time he was interrogated, Chen would plead not guilty. In the face of the "zero confession" suspect, Wu Yunfeng carefully investigated and verified, and found that Chen's confession was quite different from the facts investigated, and Chen was administratively punished for illegal possession of drugs in 2014, and was sentenced to four months of detention by the court for theft in 2016, and was also seized by the judicial authorities for drug-related acts three times, and belonged to a person with a bad record.
Wu Yunfeng (second from left) and his colleagues explained the requirements for supplementary investigation to the public security police.
"Criminal suspects in drug cases often have a strong sense of anti-investigation, and in order to break through the case in the case of 'zero confession', a comprehensive review of the evidence and comprehensive analysis and argumentation are very important." Wu Yunfeng introduced that they listed a detailed supplementary investigation outline, and after careful comparison of the testimony of relevant witnesses and the social software chats, payment and payment records in the case file, they found that the people who contacted Chen's social software were all drug addicts, and Chen was not familiar with them, and the purpose of the contact was to buy drugs.
When retrieving Chen's social software records, Wu Yunfeng found a regular phenomenon: Chen's social software communications were all voice calls, and in the same time period, there were often two voice call records sandwiched between a transfer record, and the amount was a multiple of 70 or 100. "Based on this, we guide the public security organs to collect evidence from the entire process of the drug transaction and all the people involved in the transaction, find out the facts of the transaction handled by each person, especially find out the reason for the transfer between the criminal suspect and other people, and block the retreat of the criminal suspect's defense." Wu Yunfeng said.
After collecting evidence of Chen's previous three drug involvements, it was confirmed that Chen's methods of committing the crime and trading methods were consistent in terms of the means of committing the crime, the transaction object, and the transaction method. Based on this, the procuratorate accurately determined that Chen had 37 cases of sporadic drug trafficking, which was 34 more than the three criminal facts previously transferred by the public security organs for review and prosecution.
After the Wuhua District Procuratorate initiated a public prosecution, on March 29 this year, the Wuhua District Court adopted all the facts of the crime charged by the procuratorate and sentenced the defendant Chen to five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 yuan for drug trafficking.
Think a little more and find out what you're missing
During the review and prosecution stage, when combing through the relevant evidence materials of this drug trafficking case again, Wu Yunfeng found clues about the crime of the drug buyers. "According to the experience of handling cases, long-term drug addicts will generally gather with several drug friends to smoke at the home of a drug friend. There are a lot of drug buyers involved in this case, will there also be a situation of allowing others to take drugs? Wu Yunfeng used this as a starting point to re-examine the connection between multiple drug buyers.
As expected, after investigation, drug buyers Li Mou A, Zhang Mou and Li Mou B jointly funded the purchase of drugs from Chen, and Li Mou A repeatedly allowed Li Mou B and Zhang to take drugs at his residence. Accordingly, the Wuhua District Procuratorate issued a "Supplementary Notice of Transfer for Prosecution" to the public security organs, accurately prosecuting the omitted Li Moujia.
On March 28 this year, the Wuhua District Procuratorate filed a public prosecution with the court on suspicion of allowing others to take drugs. Recently, the court sentenced the defendant Li Moujia to 10 months in prison and a fine of 2,000 yuan for the crime of allowing others to take drugs.
So far, by actively guiding the public security organs to supplement the investigation twice, the facts of the crime determined have increased from one at the time of the arrest to 37 at the time of the examination for prosecution, and one criminal suspect has been prosecuted, so that the criminal suspect has been severely punished by law.
Source: Supreme People's Procuratorate