On December 27, 2023, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange jointly released typical cases for punishing foreign exchange-related crimes. In the first case of illegal business operation by Zhao and others, Zhao was Zhao Dong, the former number one person in over-the-counter trading. One of the key words of the case was “Pursuit of missed crimes”. Today, Lawyer Liu will give you an in-depth look at how Zhao Dong was deceived by his pig teammates for seven years.
Zhao Dong was arrested in the early morning of June 24, 2020, and then entered criminal proceedings. On September 30, Hangzhou Public Security Bureau West Lake The district branch transferred the fact thatZhao Dong and others illegally engaged in the fund payment and settlement business for suspected illegal business crimes for prosecution. On April 15, 2021, the Hangzhou Xihu District People’s Court issued an announcement that Zhao Dong’s case was scheduled to be held at 9:30 a.m. on May 12. The alleged charges were “illegal business operations and aiding information network criminal activities.” ".
According to Oukelian news, Zhao Dong had already pleaded guilty and accepted punishment before the trial, and the procuratorate gave specific sentencing recommendations. According to the prosecutor, Zhao Dong's team provided virtual currency over-the-counter exchange business for part of the funds of the "Tian Tian Xiang" platform. The verifiable transactions involved amounted to more than 20 million yuan, and the income was distributed based on 70% of the shareholding ratio. The procuratorate prosecuted Zhao Dong: < /p>
Profited more than 30,000 yuan. It is recommended to be sentenced to two years in prison, with probation available.
There was an uproar among the public, and it was generally believed that they looked down upon Brother Dong’s ability to make money. According to a typical case released by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s public account today (The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange jointly released typical cases of punishing foreign exchange-related crimes), allowing us to clearly understand the details of the case. At that time, the accurate amount of the crime committed by Zhao Dong's team by the Procuratorate was: June 2019 By December, Zhao Dong and others knew clearly that You's money came from an illegal payment and settlement platform, but still used their personal bank accounts to collect RMB and exchange virtual currency with You to make a profit. The transaction amount totaled RMB More than 24.29 million yuan.
Zhao Dong made a profit of 35,000 yuan, and Zhao Moupeng and Zhou Mokai both made a profit of 5,000 yuan.
Zhao Moupeng and Zhou Mokai are members of Zhao Dong’s team. The procuratorate’s sentencing recommendation for the two during the transfer review and prosecution stage is< strong>One and a half years ago,Zhou Moukai voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment,but Zhao Moupeng insisted not to plead guilty (pig teammate),there was also an OTC named Yu who also insisted on innocence. The sentencing recommendation is also one and a half years.
According to the report, "In response to Zhao and others' defense that You were not aware of the illegal payment and settlement business and the suspected crimes of the funds involved," we understand It turns out that during the review, prosecution and court proceedings, Zhao Moupeng must have pleaded not guilty. I guess the reason why they plead not guilty is because they feel that even if they don’t plead guilty, the procuratorate’s recommended sentence is only one and a half years. As soon as the verdict was not guilty, it was copied.
As everyone knows, the gears of fate have begun to turn, and this time, they are turning in the opposite direction.
The People's Court of Xihu District held three public sessions to hear the case. During the trial on May 12, 2021, in response to the issue of innocence defense and in order to find out the subjective knowledge of each criminal suspect, procuratorial technicians from the Xihu District Procuratorate further restored and extracted the mobile phone data of the persons involved transferred by the public security organs. , analysis of the chat records between You and Zhao Dong’s gang, Zhou Kai and others is enough to confirm the fact that Zhao Dong and others knew that You was engaged in illegal payment and settlement.
Point! The point! The point! When reviewing the extracted mobile phone chat records, the West Lake District Procuratorate found that Zhao's gang also had evidence of using virtual currency to provide foreign exchange exchange services, and was suspected of illegal foreign exchange transactions.
On February 11, 2022, the Xihu District Procuratorate filed a public prosecution with the court for Xiao, You, Zhao and others committing the crime of illegal business operations. It also added the criminal facts of Zhao, Zhao Moupeng and Zhou Mokai illegally buying and selling foreign exchange.
In other words, the procuratorate originally wanted to prove that Zhao Dong and others were fully aware of the illegality of upstream funds through the chat records of the people involved. , but during the process of checking the chat records, it was discovered that Zhao Dong had made a mistake. In other words, if Zhao Moupeng did not plead not guilty and voluntarily plead guilty and accept punishment, the prosecutor's office would not dig into the chat records of the people involved in the case.
The Xihu District People's Court held three public hearings on this case, and on March 24, 2022, Zhao Dong was sentenced to seven years in prison for illegal business operations. , sentenced Zhao Moupeng to four years in prison. Compared with the sentencing suggestions given by the previous guilty pleas and punishments, Zhao Dong and Zhao Moupeng certainly could not accept it. They were about to go out, but suddenly a bolt from the blue struck them, so they appealed. On September 5 of the same year, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court of Zhejiang Province ruled to reject the appeal and uphold the original verdict.
Gossip is gossip, lawyer Liu Yang talks about the legal issues that everyone is most concerned about:
1. Don’t always plead not guilty. This sentence is not said by me. It was said by the famous criminal law scholar Zhang Mingkai. The original words are "Lawyers should not always defend innocence." It’s a crime, how can it go on? People in the public prosecutor’s office can’t be ignorant of the law, right? So don’t plead guilty.” I mentioned in my previous article that lawyers should plead not guilty. It is just a job, and the client is life. If a lawyer successfully defends his innocence once out of 100, it is called success. Therefore, as a client, you still have to be aware of it. Today I also saw Liang Liang’s lover, Ms. Lin Kai, post an article saying that Liang Liang was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the first instance. This is the heaviest sentence for organizing and leading pyramid schemes, and it is also the heaviest sentence I know for the crime of currency circles. , even if he doesn’t hire a lawyer, it can’t be any worse, not to mention that his sister and lover are facing criminal risks.
2. Not all purchases and sales of U constitute the crime of illegal business operations. This issue is what everyone is most concerned about. There are 8 typical cases in this batch of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, which mainly involve cross-border illegal trading of foreign exchange cases (the focus is on illegal trading of foreign exchange). The typical significance of Zhao Dong's case is that "using virtual currency as a medium to realize the exchange of RMB and foreign exchange This behavior constitutes the crime of illegal business operations." If the exchange of RMB and virtual currencies is only done using virtual currencies as a medium, and no foreign exchange is involved, it does not constitute the crime of illegal business operations.
A closer analysis of the Zhao Dong case will reveal what evidence standards need to be met to prove that buying and selling virtual currencies constitutes an illegal business crime: (1) Retrieve 15 transactions The domestic bank account transaction details involved in the transaction records, the bank transaction details in terms of amount and time can be mutually corroborated with the transaction data in the chat records. (2) Prepare inquiry records for the payees in the 15 transactions to confirm that the 15 collection records are foreign trade-related expenses paid by overseas persons. (3) Zhao and his gang members were interrogated. All suspects admitted that Zhao and others received dirhams in cash in Dubai, paid RMB to the domestic account provided by the other party, and used dirhams to buy Tether. At the same time, The fact that domestic gangs illegally sold Tether back to RMB. (4) Conduct targeted inspections of seized computers, mobile phones and other electronic data carriers to determine the addresses of virtual currency wallets controlled by criminal gangs, and then compare the transaction records of the virtual currency wallets with bank account flows to identify the The capital flow link of "foreign currency-virtual currency-RMB" of a criminal gang named Zhao.
Therefore, lawyer Liu Yang has issued articles many times stating that the U.S. sale case in Dabu County reported by the Guangdong Provincial High Court is not The crime of illegal business operations mainly lies in the lack of virtual currency exchange for foreign currencies. The so-called illegal business cases of disguised buying and selling of foreign exchange must meet one condition, that is, on the surface it is an act of buying and selling virtual currency, but in fact, the currency value conversion between foreign currency and RMB is realized by using Tether as a medium, which belongs to Illegal trading of foreign exchange constitutes the crime of illegal business operations.
3. It is predicted that U-commerce businesses will usher in a bloody storm. The last time I made such a prediction was after the PLUSTOKEN case was exposed by the media in December 2020. After the release of this typical case, the buying and selling of U is equivalent to illegal business, which will form a solid impression in the grassroots judicial organs. In addition, the crime of illegal business cannot be elaborated. It is predicted that there will be many cases involving U business in illegal business in the future, including many cases that have already been launched. Big guys who wash their hands should pay enough attention.
4. I hope people in the industry will not make money they shouldn’t. U merchants, as the most indispensable part of the currency circle, over the years, first took money from online gambling fraud in order to make money, covered it up, helped Xin, and later entered the muddy waters of foreign exchange. , you must know that our country implements foreign exchange controls, you otc do whatever you want in your own country, money is nothing more than left hand and right hand, but if you do this, all the money is taken out, what you have done is a bit too much, underground bank, Cross-border trade and money laundering must not be touched.
5. The characterization of virtual digital currencies still does not belong to funds. Judging from the typical cases reported, virtual digital currency is always used as a "medium". From this perspective, it essentially denies the property attribute of virtual digital currency.
6. The significance of the joint document issued by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The report shows that the procuratorial organs and foreign exchange management departments have made remarkable achievements in comprehensively using administrative law enforcement and criminal justice methods to strengthen the connection between executions and severely punish foreign exchange-related crimes. My personal opinion is that it has no special significance. The typical cases released this time are all cases involving illegal trading of foreign exchange. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange jointly issued a document to emphasize that "it will effectively implement the deployment and requirements of the Central Financial Work Conference, strictly enforce the law, dare to show the sword, and work with the judicial authorities to maintain the strict control of illegal cross-border transactions." However, in the investigation process of specific criminal cases, its role is limited. It only determines whether a certain type of foreign currency is foreign exchange. But so far, I have not seen any foreign exchange management at all levels. The Bureau directly recognized virtual digital currency as a precedent for foreign exchange.
Weiliang
Brian
Jixu
Bitcoinist