Fraudulent Chinese people under the guise of "launching new shares" and other fraudulent activities, with a direct trial: 21 people committing telecommunications fraud in Dubai appear in court today
"In the group, there was a teacher live streaming to introduce stocks. At first, I made a good profit by purchasing on my own Huatai Securities App. Later, the teacher said that by scanning the code and downloading their app, I could use the securities firm's primary market to launch new stocks and purchase limit up stocks."
It was not until over 200000 yuan in the account could not be withdrawn that the victim realized they had encountered telecommunications network fraud. In fact, the opposite party is not a fund management company at all, but a fraud gang located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They have clear division of labor and specialize in committing fraud against Chinese citizens under the guise of issuing new shares.
This morning, 21 members of the gang appeared in court at the Songjiang District People's Court in Shanghai for trial, which lasted until the end of the afternoon. In court, the 21 defendants spoke to each other, outlining the internal division of labor, language skills, and many other details of the criminal gang.
This case will be sentenced at a later date.
Multiple victims were scammed for over 5 million yuan
The People's Procuratorate of Songjiang District, Shanghai, has accused Hu, Zhu, and others of setting up dens in Dubai, United Arab Emirates since 2019 to specialize in telecommunications network fraud crimes, and recruiting lecturers and salespersons from China to Dubai's fraud dens to carry out telecommunications network fraud against residents in China. The 21 defendants who appeared in court today either joined the above-mentioned dens through introductions or through personal connections to participate in fraudulent activities.
According to the trial, the specific criminal tactics of the gang are as follows: a dedicated person "raises" the purchased real name WeChat account. After the salesperson receives the raised WeChat account, the domestic drainage team "fans" the victim to the salesperson's WeChat account. The salesperson gains the victim's trust through language, chat, etc., and guides the victim to watch the lecturer's lecture in the relevant live broadcast room. The lecturer uses fabricated insider information, internal seats, etc. to divert the victim to multiple fraud platforms made by the fraud dens for "investment" recharge, and then modifies the backend data to prevent the victim from withdrawing.
From the beginning of the conversation to the success, the gang spent an average of several weeks on each victim. By the time of the incident, these 21 people had deceived multiple victims, totaling over 5 million yuan.
From the perspective of the location and environment of the crime, the defendants were all falsely promoting investment projects to domestic personnel through servers overseas. This pattern itself is very abnormal, and anyone with basic knowledge can detect the illegal nature of this behavior. From the perspective of behavior, the defendants form multiple teams and have responsible persons who arrange their work content uniformly and cooperate with each other. The salary income is based on the commission of business volume. Although the division of labor varies, the entire team has a unified task of completing fraudulent business, and different behaviors involve fraudulent methods. From the perspective of the number of acts, the defendant has been committing fraud for a relatively long time, with a large number of investors being scammed and frequent scams.
Based on this, the prosecution believes that all defendants in this case have the purpose of illegal possession and subjectively have the intention of fraud, and should be held criminally responsible for the crime of fraud.
A fraud gang with clear division of labor
The scam gang's tactics start with the WeChat account used during chatting. Jiang is the person in charge of "account maintenance" in the gang. According to his confession, the gang has a dedicated WeChat group and WeChat "account merchants" to contact. They purchase a large number of "well maintained" WeChat accounts through the "account merchants" for use by salespeople during chatting.
In addition to overseeing the logistics of the gang, Wang's important task is to log in his WeChat account to different phones. Whenever a salesperson needs to chat, he will take away the corresponding phone. "These accounts may be banned from dropping at any time by WeChat, and I still need to keep an eye on them. If they drop, I will try logging in again, and if I can't log in, I will switch to a new account," said Wang.
The language and scripts used by salespeople to chat with victims are mostly written by the business supervisor, Mr. Lin. Lin is actually an old acquaintance of Hu. He worked under him in telecommunications fraud in 2019 and left for a period of time. In March 2021, he returned to Hu as the team leader and later became the head of the entire sales team. "When I was a salesperson, I had to chat with people every day. If I cheated money, I could get a commission of 5% -8%. As a supervisor, I don't have to chat with people anymore. I can get a commission of 1% -3% of the total amount of fraud committed by the entire salesperson team."
After being deceived in the live broadcast room, the victim will see the talkative lecturer. Little did they know that these lecturers had no qualifications in the financial and securities industry, and some even lacked basic financial knowledge before giving their lectures. One of the lecturers, Zheng, confessed in court that he was older and typing slowly, so he changed from a salesperson to a lecturer. "The boss said I looked experienced and easy to believe, so he gave me a bunch of materials related to stocks, allowing me to master them within a month."
When questioned in court, Zheng said, "If you encounter any questions you don't understand, then don't answer and shift the topic."
In addition, Hu will also regularly organize meetings for all members, which is both a "review" and a "training". Several defendants recalled that Hu would clearly tell them what to say when using a new account to reconnect with the victim after the WeChat account was blocked, and would also ask everyone to analyze together whether to continue talking to a victim about stocks for a week or move on to the next stage.
There is an interesting detail in the trial. According to Hu's request, after each successful fraud, the WeChat account used should be completely cancelled. But the "account keeper" Jiang, who is specifically responsible for this matter, reached a private agreement with the "account merchant" to recycle these WeChat accounts, and Jiang will charge a commission from them.
"Voluntary" or "forced"?
During the trial, most defendants confessed to their criminal acts without hesitation. However, some defendants argued in court that they were originally unaware and were forced to join a criminal gang.
For example, Zhao, who is responsible for technology in the gang, stated that he was only hired by Hu to be responsible for software production and live streaming platforms, and did not directly participate in fraud. He also did not know that Hu and others were committing criminal acts. "Before going abroad, I specifically asked Hu if he was committing illegal crimes, and Hu said he would definitely not."
However, in the face of questioning by judges and prosecutors, these defenses have revealed their shortcomings. The prosecutor pointed out that Zhao used a foreign software to connect with a third-party company, which has functions such as unilateral deletion of chat records and not displaying the location of use. Hu also stipulated that real names cannot be used within the gang, and all "company" information must be destroyed at regular intervals.
"Do you think a normal company would have these requirements?" Faced with this question, Zhao remained silent for a while and said, "No."
Another salesperson stated that they applied to the company established by Hu through normal channels and found out that he was engaged in telecommunications network fraud. They wanted to leave and were forced to continue the fraud.
The fact is, this salesperson's "coercion" is different from what everyone understands, and it is not the kind of violent means used in the movie "All for One". According to him, he once left the gang, but because he couldn't buy a plane ticket to return to his home country, he ran out of money and had no choice but to go back and continue the scam. "Is this what you call 'forced' to work for the gang?" "Yes."
The reporter noticed that some members of the gang saw Hu's job posting on "58.com" and were attracted to Dubai by high salaries, while others were pulled in by fellow villagers. For this reason, Hu also established a rule that "the company" allows members to exchange shares by "pulling people's heads". If any members want to leave, the villagers will come forward to persuade, and Wang has done this before.
