23 online store owners were defrauded of more than 590,000 yuan, just because they believed in this professional operation team|At half past nine tonight

The fraud gang claims to be a professional online store operation team

We have rich experience from product selection to sales

You can help the store owner run an online store

In a period of one to two weeks

Sales can be doubled to tripled

The daily turnover can reach thousands of dollars

……

In recent years, with the popularity of short video platforms, shop windows and small shops developed based on these platforms have also emerged, becoming a new entrepreneurial model. Under the guise of "online store operation", some fraudsters first place orders to falsely increase sales, and then pretend to be manufacturers to defraud the payment and then quickly return the order, taking advantage of the time difference and poor information, to defraud 23 online store owners across the country of more than 590,000 yuan in just ten days. Recently, after the procuratorate of Hai'an City, Jiangsu Province initiated a public prosecution, the court of first instance sentenced the defendants Su Moujia and Su Mou B to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 10 years to 2 years and 6 months, and each was fined 80,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan. Su Moujia appealed against the verdict, and the case is currently under further review.

The business of the online store is bleak and the "operation team" happens to meet

In June 2023, Mr. Yuan, who lives in Hai'an, took advantage of the current popularity of the short video platform to register an online store called "Hua Ge Haowu" on an e-commerce platform, and carried the wholesaler's products to his own online store to sell them by placing orders without supply, hoping to earn the price difference. Because he has no experience in running an online store, Mr. Yuan can only learn and do at the same time. After setting up his online store, he put a number of popular products on the shelves, but there were no sales. After the online store was opened for a period of time, Mr. Yuan not only did not make money, but lost tens of thousands.

Just when Mr. Yuan was at a loss, he received a strange call, the other party claimed to be a professional online store operation team, from product selection to sales have rich experience, can help Mr. Yuan operate the store, the online store operation team is responsible for product shelves, promotion, delivery, after-sales and other work, in a week to two weeks of sales can achieve two to three times the growth of sales, the daily turnover can reach thousands of yuan, the key is that the operation team does not charge any fees to the store, only earn the manufacturer's rebate commission. After listening to the other party's introduction, Mr. Yuan felt that this was a good model for win-win cooperation, so he happily gave the login permission of his online store to the other party.

Sure enough, there were sales of one or two thousand yuan on the first day of operation, and even five or six thousand, seven or eight thousand yuan on the second and third days. Seeing that the originally deserted online store instantly became popular, Mr. Yuan was overjoyed. At this time, the other party proposed that because of the soaring sales of the product, the manufacturer required to pay the cost price of the goods as a deposit, and the delivery could only be arranged after receiving the deposit. Mr. Yuan thought to himself that since the buyer had already paid, it was equivalent to half of the business, so he agreed.

A week passed, Mr. Yuan successively transferred more than 40,000 yuan to the manufacturer, but none of the orders were delivered. At the same time, Mr. Yuan found that hundreds of orders in the store had all been cancelled by buyers, and the payment had been refunded. Mr. Yuan hurriedly contacted the online store operation team, but found that no one answered the phone or WeChat. At this point, Mr. Yuan realized that he might have been deceived and immediately called the police.

Role-playing deceived 23 online store owners

According to the clues provided by Mr. Yuan, in June 2023, the police quickly arrested 9 suspects including Su Moujia in Weishi County, Henan Province. After investigation, this is a criminal gang that pretends to be an operation team to commit fraud.

In May 2023, Su Moujia took a fancy to the development opportunity of e-commerce, and after participating in the operation for a period of time, he figured out a set of "business experience" of "empty gloves white wolf". So, Su Moujia found his friend Su Mouyi, and brought Su Mouc, Su Mouding, and Li to implement the plan.

After the personnel were gathered, Su Moujia took 8 people to rent a residential building in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, and distributed a mobile phone to each person. Su Moujia is under the unified command and is responsible for putting products on the e-commerce platform, payment and other matters, while Su Mouyi pretends to be a supply chain manufacturer, and Su Mou C, Su Mou Ding, Li and other 7 people serve as salesmen.

The salesman first looked for some shopkeepers with poor sales and operational needs from the e-commerce platform, and deceived the shopkeepers into trusting them under the guise of free operation, maintenance, and dropshipping. After getting the store owner's e-commerce platform account and password, Su Moujia logged on to the e-commerce platform to list daily necessities, clothes and other hot products. Subsequently, the salesman began to place an order virtually, and then sent the payment link of the order to Su Moujia, who paid by Su Moujia.

The salesman used the virtual consignee and the delivery address to place a large number of repeated orders in a short period of time, creating the illusion that the business was booming to deceive the trust of the shopkeeper, and then pulled the shopkeeper into a WeChat group where Su Mouyi pretended to be a supply chain manufacturer. Su Mouyi asked the store owner to transfer money to the designated bank account on the grounds that he needed to pay about 70% of the cost of the order before he could deliver the goods. At this time, the store owner saw that the customer had already paid to the platform, and he was reluctant to give up these orders, so he could only pay part of the payment in advance.

As soon as the payment arrives, Su Moujia will uniformly ask the salesman to return the order, and after the salesman carries out the refund operation, the funds of the false order will be returned to Su Moujia's payment account in the same way.

After investigation, the public security organs found that 22 online store owners from Yunnan, Hubei, Guangxi, Tibet and other parts of the country were deceived like Mr. Yuan.

Accurate accusations to achieve recovery of stolen goods and losses

In October 2023, after the investigation by the public security organs was concluded, 9 people, including Su Moujia and Su Mouyi, were transferred to the Hai'an Municipal Procuratorate for review and prosecution on suspicion of fraud. During the review for prosecution, the procurator in charge comprehensively reviewed the file materials, interrogated the criminal suspect, and simultaneously carried out the work of recovering stolen goods and recovering losses. After investigation, from the end of May to mid-June 2023, the gang used the above methods to defraud 23 online store owners across the country of a total of more than 590,000 yuan in just over 10 days. After explaining the law and reasoning, except for Su Moujia, the remaining 8 people voluntarily pleaded guilty and actively returned more than 430,000 yuan in compensation.

In November 2023, the Hai'an Municipal Procuratorate prosecuted 9 criminal suspects including Su Moujia and Su MouB in accordance with the law, and put forward corresponding sentencing recommendations. During the trial, Su Moujia only admitted that he was involved in part of the fraud, but denied that he was the main culprit. In order to clarify the facts, the prosecutor focused on Su Moujia's status and role in this case, conducted interrogation and verification in court, and combined with the evidence in the case, accused Su Moujia of gathering people, renting venues, teaching criminal methods, arranging division of labor, etc., in the early stage of the formation of the fraud gang, and was responsible for putting goods on the shelves, organizing salesmen to place orders, return orders, pay order fees, control collection accounts, and distribute stolen money after the fraud ended. In the end, the court accepted all the accusations of the procuratorate and determined that Su Moujia was the main culprit in the case.

In order to recover the stolen goods and recover the losses to the greatest extent, during the trial, the procurator and the judge in charge continued to explain the law and reason, urging the defendant to continue to return the stolen goods and make restitution. In June this year, the court made a first-instance judgment in accordance with the law. Before the verdict was rendered, the defendant withdrew all the stolen money.

(Source: Procuratorate Daily Author: Lu Zhijian, Lu Yinqiu, Luo Yuling Comics: Yao Wen)