In recent years, some investment and financial management companies have successively "exploded", and the participants in the fund-raising have suffered huge losses. The victims have established rights protection groups to defend their rights together. Some lawless elements have had evil intentions and secretly lurked in the rights protection groups, taking advantage of the rights defenders' urgent need to "recover blood" and committing fraud in the name of "finding connections to recover money". Recently, Nanjing Gulou Court concluded such a case.

1

Game within game:

Meet "enthusiastic people" in the rights protection group

Beware of "fraud"!

In 2019, Investment Company A launched a financial product under the banner of "high return, low risk" to raise funds illegally, defrauding Ms. Zhang of 1.1 million yuan. In order to recover the economic losses, Ms. Zhang joined the rights protection group at the invitation of others. One day, Wang in the group took the initiative to add Ms. Zhang as a friend.

Wang:

Beauty, have you also invested money in this company?

Ms. Zhang:

Yes, I regret it so much, 1.1 million is just wasted!

Wang:

Not really. I have an acquaintance in the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, and I heard that they can find a way to get our money back.

Ms. Zhang:

Really? How do I find him?

Wang:

I'm planning to go to Shanghai the day after tomorrow. I'll tell you when I get in touch.

In order to gain Ms. Zhang's trust, Wang started chatting with Ms. Zhang in July 2020 by pretending to be the director of a police station in Shanghai, the director's wife, and daughter. He repeatedly defrauded Ms. Zhang of money on the grounds of smoothing relationships, family accidents, and the director's death, and used the money to gamble. Under Wang's careful design, Ms. Zhang, who was eager to recover the money, believed what the other party said and got deeper and deeper into the trap. In more than a year, she transferred a total of more than 760,000 yuan to Wang. Later, Ms. Zhang realized that everything was a scam and hurriedly reported the case to the police.

2

The court held

In this case, Wang fabricated facts, concealed the truth, and defrauded others of their property for the purpose of illegal possession. The amount was extremely huge. His behavior constituted the crime of fraud and should be punished according to law. Wang fabricated the fact that he could help Ms. Zhang recover the funds raised. After gaining trust, he used various reasons to defraud Ms. Zhang of the money, which should be considered as the amount of fraud. After Wang was arrested, he truthfully confessed his criminal facts of fraud and can be given a lighter punishment according to law; he pleaded guilty and accepted punishment and can be given a lenient punishment according to law; he can be given a lighter punishment at the discretion of the court if he returns part of the stolen money after the case.

Court decision

Wang was convicted of fraud and sentenced to ten years in prison and a fine of RMB 100,000. He was ordered to return the remaining stolen money of more than RMB 650,000 to the victim.

This case is a typical case of "precision" fraud against fund-raising participants. In this case, the victims are the investment and financial management group that suffered losses. Although they have a strong sense of rights protection, they still have illusions such as "finding connections to get in", and their awareness of preventing online fraud is poor. Fraudsters take advantage of the "grouping" characteristics of the investment and financial management group and the psychological eagerness to recover the funds, and fabricate various personalities and backgrounds to carry out "fancy" fraud. The judge reminded that investment and financial management should be cautious, and rights protection groups should be rational. Pay attention to the notices issued by official channels in a timely manner, do not add so-called "rights protection group friends" at will, and do not easily believe in the so-called "finding connections to get things done" to prevent falling into the "next trap".