The company's production raw materials were stolen! Why has the package swap scheme been going on for 17 years?
The police recently announced the investigation details of a job embezzlement case that lasted for 17 years. What is it that makes the participants sleepless and foodless, makes the company leaders feel frightened, and even the police find it incredible? Let’s find out together↓
The participants had trouble sleeping and eating, and the company obtained clues and urgently reported the crime.
In June 2022, police from the Haishu Branch of the Ningbo Public Security Bureau in Zhejiang Province received a report from a local company saying that an employee had stolen styrene, the raw material used by the company for production.
Feng Jun, a police officer from the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of Haishu Branch of Ningbo Public Security Bureau: Their company said that for every 10 barrels of styrene purchased from a trading house, 1 to 2 barrels may be replaced with water.
The company that reported the case is a local high-tech company that has been established for more than 20 years. It mainly produces new materials, and styrene is the raw material needed for the company's processing and production. This is a colorless, oily liquid with a pungent odor. Without opening the barrel for inspection, it would be difficult to distinguish it from water based on appearance alone. So how did this new material company discover that the raw materials had been swapped? The incident began with a tip from one of the company's suppliers.
Mr. Wang's company is a supplier of styrene to this new materials company. His daily job is to load and transport the styrene produced by the company to the customer's company. One day when Mr. Wang was working in the workshop as usual, he accidentally saw an unusual scene.
Mr. Wang saw that two other old employees, Weng and Cao, were replacing the styrene produced by the company with water. After the behavior of replacing styrene was discovered, Weng and Cao immediately expressed their "expression" to Mr. Wang.
Although Mr. Wang was scared at the time, he thought that both of them were old men in the company, and he had only been in the company for more than a year. Driven by profit, he did not refuse the hush money offered by the two. In the next year, in order to keep Mr. Wang silent, Weng and Cao paid him 200 to 300 yuan each time they replaced styrene. But as the number of visits continued to increase, Mr. Wang’s psychological burden became heavier and heavier.
Mr. Wang, the client: I also feel that this is wrong. I must find the manufacturer and expose this matter.
After making up his mind, Mr. Wang felt that due to Cao's status as an old employee, he was afraid that if he reported it to his company, the news would leak out in advance. So I found the contact information of the person in charge of this new materials company on the Internet and called him.
Mr. Zhang, the person in charge of a new materials company: I am quite shocked because this situation has not been found for so many years.
Although he said it was impossible, Mr. Zhang, the head of the new material company, immediately verified the situation. Based on the clues provided by Mr. Wang, Mr. Zhang immediately arranged for a surprise inspection of the latest styrene purchase.
Mr. Zhang, the person in charge of a new materials company: After we went over and controlled the scene, we found that two of the barrels were water, not the raw material styrene.
Why was it not discovered that the raw materials were replaced during the company’s inspection process?
After taking control of the scene, the person in charge of the company immediately called the police. The police investigation found that after the styrene was transported to the new material company, according to the process, quality inspection, weighing and other processes were required. So the question is, after so many passes, styrene was replaced with water, why was it not discovered?
Although it is difficult to tell the difference between styrene and water in appearance, if you follow the process and just open the barrel for inspection, it is not difficult to find the problem. So how did the styrene pretending to be water get through? Further investigation by the police found that the warehouse keeper Li was responsible for many aspects of the new materials company's styrene from quality inspection to storage. Li has been working in the company for 18 years.
Li arrived early for work every day and gave up smoking for work. Li's work attitude won the trust of the company's leaders, so he dared to leave several operational aspects to him alone.
Hu Wei, deputy captain of the Economic Crime Investigation Team of Haishu Branch of Ningbo Public Security Bureau: Only during the time period between five and six o'clock in the morning, Li's work is unsupervised. In the end, it was very certain that the only person in this company who embezzled the company's finances through this model was Li.
Facing the police investigation, Li quickly confessed that he secretly replaced three barrels of styrene and wrote a letter of repentance to the company.
The police found that Li acted very cautiously. When he was under investigation, he had cleared all the communication messages with Weng and Cao. At the same time, when the police questioned Weng and Cao, they found that the confessions of the three were surprisingly consistent.
Based on various signs, and based on Mr. Wang's earlier report, this behavior of "substituting one thing for another" has been going on for at least a year. The police judged that the three people who were arrested obviously made collusive confessions and established an offensive and defensive alliance in advance. Subsequently, the police obtained the company's purchase list for the past year. In the face of the evidence, the three people changed their stories one after another and admitted to the crime of secretly exchanging styrene for reselling within a year.
Further investigation into when the suspect started committing the crime
They first admitted to committing the crime for a month or two, and then changed their story for a year in front of the evidence. The inconsistent attitudes of the three people made the police more suspicious. Through further investigation, a major case of "stealing and replacing others" that had been hidden for more than ten years slowly came to light.
Sun Yiwen, a police officer from the Economic Crime Investigation Brigade of Haishu Branch of Ningbo Public Security Bureau: It was discovered that Li, Cao and Weng had actually known each other for more than 10 years.
The police investigation found that in the second year after Li worked for this new material company, the company experienced a significant increase in the loss rate of raw material styrene. And from then on, Li would have unusual expenses in the two days before and after transporting styrene.
After investigation, Li's salary income in his position is about 5,000 yuan per month, but Li's daily expenses exceed 10,000 yuan. Through a retrospective analysis of the accounts of the company where Li and others sold stolen goods, it was found that as early as 2015, Li had already begun selling stolen styrene to this company.
So when did the case begin? The police obtained all purchase records involving styrene from the victim company in the past 20 years, as well as the receipt records of downstream companies selling stolen goods.
Hu Wei, deputy captain of the Economic Crime Investigation Team of the Haishu Branch of the Ningbo Municipal Public Security Bureau: We found that on the day or two days before the corresponding funds were generated, the victim company would purchase and store the corresponding goods. We also retrieved the entry and exit records, which were all signed and confirmed by Li.
After investigation, the police found that Li had already conspired with Cao and Weng to "subcontract" styrene for trafficking in the second year after joining the company. Their conspiracy to commit crimes had lasted for 17 years.
Every time he committed a crime, Li would transport several buckets filled with water to the warehouse, weigh them, and then drain the water in the buckets from the rainwater well in the warehouse. During this series of actions, Li would do this in public places. in the video blind spot.
In order not to be discovered, Li and others would only replace 2 to 3 barrels during each transportation, accounting for about 10% of the total amount of styrene transported each time. In the end, Li verified the styrene by reporting losses. pin. According to Mr. Zhang, the person in charge of the new material company, styrene only accounts for 5% of all raw materials. The amount of 10% styrene that Li and others transfer each time is equivalent to 0.5% of all raw materials. Therefore, it is difficult to report this loss amount. The company found out.
Hu Wei, deputy captain of the Economic Crime Investigation Team of Haishu Branch of Ningbo Public Security Bureau: Because this involves multiple departments such as materials, business, and product production, and the several departments are independent of each other, there is no integration work between each other's data. It is not possible to conduct a systematic review of the entire process. If there is a problem in any link, the problem will be solved in that link.
According to the police, Cao and Weng would sell the transferred styrene at a low price of about 60% off the market price, and the stolen money would be shared equally among the three.
After investigation, it was found that during the past 17 years, Li took advantage of his position as an operator in the company's material workshop and was responsible for the initial warehousing inspection of styrene, and embezzled a total of more than 20 million yuan in value of the raw material styrene.
Dong Wen, Deputy Director of Haishu Branch of Ningbo Municipal Public Security Bureau: The criminals in this case are ordinary employees who are easily ignored in the daily management process of the company. The criminal process of the case also showed strong concealment, long cycle, and large accumulated amount of money involved. Characteristics, these new characteristics have also alerted victim companies. It is necessary to combine the characteristics of the enterprise's production and operation, strengthen internal audit and internal control from the four dimensions of human, financial, material and affairs, strengthen the construction of systems and processes, and allow the enterprise to strengthen the inherent shortcomings of management in a timely manner.
At the same time, in order to help the company recover its losses to the greatest extent, the police obtained the quantity and amount of styrene received by the stolen goods sales company each time in the past 17 years, and then checked with the funds flow on Li and others' mobile phones to determine the specific amount and freeze the illegal profits. Return it to the victim company. At present, nearly 18 million yuan in stolen money has been recovered in this case.
Improving the grassroots management system of enterprises will help build a solid anti-corruption defense line
This case has sounded the alarm for companies. In addition to company managers and financial personnel, positions such as warehouse managers and drivers may also become participants in internal corruption cases because the management of these positions is relatively lax compared with key positions. , once corruption occurs, it is often difficult to detect, and the harmful consequences may be shocking. Therefore, filling the gaps and improving the grassroots management system will be more conducive to building a comprehensive anti-corruption defense line. At the same time, once clues to the case are discovered, the case must be reported promptly.
