The daughter’s self-narration article in the transfer article:
They cheated me right under my nose, and I didn't even notice it
My father is 68 years old. He used to work in a factory, and later went into business. He made money and lost a lot of money. He spent most of his life in this way. After my mother passed away from illness a few years ago, my father often went out to travel, and he did not give up his business, trying to fill his life with these.
I am a freelancer and have many opportunities to work from home. Even so, I didn't notice my father's abnormality. He just kept talking about changing to an Android phone. When he heard that I was going on a business trip for more than a month, he insisted and asked me to take him to buy one immediately. I muttered to myself, my father has always been frugal and would like to use a mobile phone for several years. Why did he have to change the iPhone 13 he just bought the year before last?
I couldn't persuade him, so I took him to the Huawei store. In the store, my father asked the clerk to help him download two apps, T*Wallet and O*Wallet. After asking, I learned that my father bought a virtual currency called Yuanli Metaverse. These two apps cannot be used on Apple systems, and Hongmeng system can only be downloaded on specific websites according to the instructions. Installing these two apps was the real motivation for my father to change his phone.
Intuitively, I felt that this was a bit strange. The Huawei clerk also whispered to me, "Has your father been scammed?" I searched for "Force Coin" on my phone, and all I saw were negative news, with the word "scam" all over the screen.
The concept of virtual currency has been popular for several years. Based on my understanding at the time, I knew that this was a very complex and extremely high-risk financial product. Most people would not be able to understand it in a short period of time, let alone an old man who is nearly 70 years old.
But I did not jump to conclusions immediately. Instead, I followed my father's arrangements and prepared to go to a "studio" with him to transfer the key of his so-called "wallet" to my mobile phone.
I kept asking on the way, and my father told me that he had transferred 520,000 RMB to a private account in batches, and the other party said that he would help to exchange it into US dollars before buying the currency. I was secretly surprised, but he was still interested in "popularizing" some popular terms in the world: web3.0, metaverse, Bitcoin, blockchain, AI, NFT, etc...
Walking into the "studio" my father mentioned, the originally small room seemed very crowded. Many elderly people of the same age as my father were receiving "one-on-one" services. My father was served by a man and a woman, who sat opposite me. The man used to be a real estate agent, and the woman spoke with a strong accent, calling him "brother" and not looking like a well-educated person. It was hard to associate them with the highly technical virtual currency. Looking at the elderly in the room again, an ominous premonition came to my mind.
The incident happened suddenly. I had no preparation. I just went straight to the point and asked the other party, is the Force Coin real? Where did my father's money go? I returned the money without a reasonable explanation. The other party directly replied that the money had been converted into US dollars for my father to buy Force Coin, and it could only be sold after it was listed.
He could not provide any basis for currency exchange, and talked me around until dark. Not only did he fail to provide any valuable information, he also tried to tell me that my cognition was limited. I could only let the other party import the so-called "wallet" into my father's new phone. There were some numbers in it that I couldn't understand. According to them, it was the currency that my father bought with money.
The first fight with the opponent really confused me. During this process, the father kept apologizing to the opponent, saying that the child was ignorant and had a bad attitude.
"Good things become bad things if they are made public"
I was not fooled when we met for the first time, but since I didn’t know much about the operational properties of virtual currency, I couldn’t tell which link was a scam.
Afterwards, my father said that he learned about Force Coin through someone’s introduction while traveling. In the nightly Tencent meetings, so-called economists and successful people use Bitcoin as a case to share with the elderly how they made hundreds of times the money and got rich. Now, Force Coin is another once-in-a-century opportunity. In these meetings, the “salesmen” also told the elderly that not only do they have to spend money to buy coins, but if they want to make more money, the most important thing is to develop downstream customers.
Stills from "Public Prosecution"
A typical Ponzi scheme has emerged. The "salesmen" also emphasized that China does not allow cryptocurrency speculation, but high risk means high returns. So they want to make a fortune quietly, on the one hand, let people who are interested know, and on the other hand, never make it public.
I analyzed their fraud logic with my father, and he firmly believed that he was the trendsetter of the times. I was so anxious that I found a police friend who was in charge of economic cases and sent him the recording and the little evidence I had. The police replied quickly: "There is no need to investigate. He must have been deceived." I asked him to video call my father immediately, but my father didn't listen at all and kept talking: "Even if others are fake, 99% of them are scams, I think mine is real!"
A police friend said that it is really difficult to get the elderly to admit that they were cheated! In the cases he has handled, the scammers are more enthusiastic than the family members and can provide more emotional value. After being brainwashed continuously, the elderly are led into the illusory dream of getting rich quickly and cannot extricate themselves at all.
My father was obviously "obsessed", but I was in a hurry to go on a business trip at the time, so I could only emphasize these three things to my father very clearly and continuously before the trip: don't invest any more money, don't develop new customers, and be prepared to lose all your money.
In desperation, we first conducted "de-brainwashing" on our father.
When I got home, more than a month had passed. My colleague Zinan (pseudonym) had served in the special forces and was experienced in dealing with and resolving crises. I mentioned this to him during the business trip and he offered to help me investigate.
Through the integrated information, we found that Rado, the Russian genius often mentioned by my father, the founder of the Force Coin, who claimed to be one of the three founders of Ethereum, is fictitious, and similar worthless altcoins have collapsed twice.
But we still lacked evidence to convince my father. At this time, Zinan remembered his friend, a blockchain expert who had been in the industry for many years as a blockchain engineer and researcher and had worked in the top blockchain research institute in China. The three of us quickly aligned our information and determined that this was a classic pyramid scheme that just packaged various concepts of blockchain. Before this, this blockchain expert even did similar training for the public security organs, so we didn’t need to explain to the police when we called the police several times.
I immediately arranged for Zinan to meet with his father. Compared to my superficial logic and emotional balance, Zinan seemed to have a good reasoning, but his father was still stubborn. Of course, this was within our expectations.
So the blockchain expert showed up on time that night. He retrieved the information in his father's "wallet" on the computer. The "wallet" was real. It once had about $10,000 in DAI coins, but it was transferred away in an instant and was worth only a few cents.
The DAI coin here needs some explanation. DAI coin is a virtual currency of the blockchain network Ethereum. Because its value is relatively stable and its exchange value with the US dollar is about 1:1, it is mainly used as a stable virtual currency anchored to the US dollar. Many people will first exchange US dollars or RMB for DAI, and then use DAI to buy virtual currency. During the purchase process, you can create a wallet on the relevant platform. Each wallet has a unique key. With the key, you have full control over the virtual currency in the wallet. The biggest feature of virtual currency transactions on the blockchain is that the capital path is transparent and traceable in the public domain.
According to investigations by blockchain experts, this so-called Force Coin, unlike Bitcoin or DAI, has no value on the blockchain. It is commonly known as air coin or copycat coin. Issuers and salesmen claim that this coin is in a fundraising stage similar to "original stock", and that the coin will be held for appreciation and can be traded after listing. However, judging from the ecological development and operation of these coins, it is impossible for them to be listed, and even if they are listed, they have no value at all. Moreover, based on various information, we judge that this capital pool may collapse at any time.
The three of us took turns to do it, and my father was a little discouraged. He kept saying that it was a misunderstanding and that the three of us didn't know how to operate it, but he agreed to take us to find out the truth the next day. Obviously, he was also unsure.
The next morning, Zinan asked me to continue bombarding my father with information. "He may not understand it, but it will continue to make him hesitate." Zinan also sent a "script", and I exaggerated it and said that Zinan had gone to the International Liaison Department of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and found out through Interpol that Rado, the founder of the Force Universe, was already an international wanted criminal. What makes people laugh and cry is that this fictitious story is one of the most believed and shocking evidences for my father.
Zinan and I agreed to meet downstairs at the other party's building at 3 pm, and asked the blockchain expert to be ready for a telephone confrontation at any time. Before leaving, I felt uneasy, worried that my father would switch sides with the other party. Zinan decided to add fuel to the fire and continue the story of the International Liaison Department. Zinan lowered his voice and said to his father: "Things can only be discussed face to face. Our comrades-in-arms took the risk to reveal it. The country is about to close the net. By then, we will not be able to see the people and the money. Today is the last chance to see the other party. There is only one purpose, to get the money back."
These were words I said to scare my dad, but they turned out to be true. This was indeed the last time we met each other.
It was also a coincidence that on this day, China Business News published a report that a project called "Fosachi 2.0 Force Coin Metaverse Project" was spreading rapidly on major social platforms, and its operating logic was exactly the same as the Force Coin project that my father was involved in. The Office of the Leading Group for Combating and Dealing with Illegal Fund Raising in Pucheng County, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province issued an announcement stating that some participants in the project were involved in fund-raising fraud or pyramid schemes.
It is even more difficult to solve the case
Zinan asked his father to go in first to confirm whether the other party was there, so as not to alert the enemy. During this time, Zinan said to me: "You must support me unconditionally in any action I take today. I am your husband now, and your father is my father-in-law!"
I understood what he meant and knew very well that it would be difficult to get them to return the money.
Fortunately, they were there! Zinan and I pushed open the door, and it was still crowded. We were prepared, but they were not, so the initial stage of the confrontation went smoothly.
Zinan got straight to the point: "You've run into a trap today! I'm a retired officer from the special forces, and many of my comrades are in the public security system." Of course, all of this is true. He went on to say, "If I were you, I would only take 490,000 yuan from the old man. Fraudulently defrauding 500,000 yuan is a particularly large amount, and the sentence is more than 10 years to life imprisonment. This has been announced by the court! Those who involve the elderly, the disabled, and students will be severely punished. You have also run into the trap of the blockchain expert. Come, let me show you the background of my father-in-law's wallet."
Zinan took out the background data provided by the blockchain expert. "I'll give you face, return the money! If you don't give me face, let's change places and change the way of communication."
I originally thought that it would take a lot of effort to get the other party to admit to fraud. Unexpectedly, after Zinan's words, the other party immediately wilted, without even mentioning the Ponzi scheme fraud. At this time, my father looked ashen, and the other party honestly let Zinan look through his mobile phone, bank account, and backpack, as if he was an investigating policeman. There were also one or two people who looked like ordinary people at the scene, who were also on pins and needles and dared not speak.
We spent an afternoon checking the bank and Alipay accounts on the other party's mobile phone, and only transferred more than 1,200 yuan. Even when we were looking through it, the other party's virtual account received 1,000 DAI coins (about 7,600 yuan), which was probably the spoils of our fraud before we came. I couldn't help but sigh in my heart, this gang doesn't look big, but they have cheated so many elderly people's money!
By this time, the other party's strategy became clear: they had no money and could not lend me money. This routine was expected, so after several hours of confrontation, I saw that the other party would not return any more money, so I called the police. After calling the police, the accomplices in the outer room disappeared immediately, leaving only the former real estate agent who had contacted my father.
After calling the police, the other party was taken to the police station
Zinan began to search his body to check if he had any knives or other offensive tools. These details were intended to continue to put pressure on him and make him believe in the script we designed and Zinan's character.
At this time, I realized something else. I originally thought that as long as we caught the perpetrators with evidence, we could open a case for investigation. But the other party would rather we call the police than give up the money, which shows that the matter is far from as simple as I thought.
It turned out to be true. At the police station, the police said that it sounded like a pyramid scheme, but it was very difficult to collect evidence to define fraud. It was difficult to file a case with the economic investigation department, and detention was even more impossible. Because my father didn’t know the elderly who might also be deceived, except for the “salesman”, he didn’t meet the third-level filing standard for pyramid scheme fraud. Moreover, the other party’s anti-detection awareness was very high, and there was no WeChat record that could serve as evidence. It seemed that they were fully prepared to “prevent” the arrival of this day.
However, because the other party was ready to flee at any time, he carried all his documents with him. Before reporting the case, Zinan had already searched the "studio" and found the household registration book, driver's license and seven or eight bank cards. After our repeated requests, the police agreed to let the other party sign a refund commitment letter and seized the documents as collateral.
The other party signed a refund commitment and the police seized the documents
At this time, I received a text message from Zinan: "Try to delay the other party, Lin Xuan (another friend) will be here soon!" Zinan was thinking about the next plan... because he knew that once he walked out of the police station, the other party would disappear without a trace...
After they disappeared, the script began
After leaving the police station, I took my father home. Zinan and Lin Xuan continued to follow each other home. Of course, he didn't dare to go home, so Zinan drove and followed them to the office where he called the police. He felt that he had to continue to put pressure on them, especially while Lin Xuan was there, so that he couldn't figure out our number and details.
Lin Xuan usually works out and is tall. That night, he wore a black mask and a black hat with the brim pulled down low, which made him look even more impressive. Going there means showing an attitude that we are serious. That night, the other party transferred only more than 100 yuan of DAI coins to the blockchain expert's wallet. Although the amount was small, it provided considerable clues for future investigations...
The next morning, Zinan and I went to the other party's "office", but the other party had run away, and the information we found the day before was gone. The whole room was empty, except for another staff member who was there the day before, the one who seemed to be a gangster. But this person said that he just shared the house and had nothing to do with the whole thing. We were too lazy to investigate further and did not confront him head-on. After all, catching one person would not be enough.
Zinan decided not to contact the other party actively anymore. He had already run away. Contacting him would only put him in a passive position. We had to let him show up on his own. Most of his father's transfers were made to the salesman's brother. When Zinan looked through the salesman's phone and combined it with the chat records, he found out that his brother worked in a store of a chain real estate.
The "salesman's" brother is suspected to be calling his younger brother
We went there uninvited, but the confrontation was greater than that of the day before. After all, such a big thing had happened, and the two brothers must have communicated with each other.
Coincidentally, I met a real estate agent in this area. After learning about my experience, he revealed some relevant inside information to me. During the epidemic, there were few sources of income, and these salesmen often worked part-time as bank card runners (converting a sum of money back and forth between many people's bank cards. In case of trouble, it would be difficult for the economic investigation agency to track it down). Many of them were involved in pyramid schemes. This information had nothing to do with my father's affairs, but it also became Zinan's "live hanging" script, making the salesman's brother feel that he was transparent and we were unfathomable.
Zinan observed and waited in front of the store of the "salesman's" brother.
At the scene, we questioned the other party in a very stern tone. He tried to leave but was pulled back by Zinan. Finally, he took the initiative to call the police.
When he saw the police, he was as aggrieved as a child and said that we were illegally detaining him. The police knew it was a scam targeting the elderly. The police asked directly: "You lent your bank account to your brother to do this, which is a crime of "aiding and abetting". You must bear criminal responsibility. Do you know the seriousness of this?" Upon hearing this, his brother was immediately scared and limp.
The police asked him to call his brother, but he didn't answer. The police said one sentence and asked him to write one sentence: "Hurry up and contact me. The police officer with the police number XXXX asked me to tell you to return the old man's money as soon as possible. You are hurting others and yourself by doing this, and you are hurting me too... Hurry up and return the money!" After the police left, Zinan deliberately found the salesman's brother again and said in front of all the employees: "I will come back tomorrow!"
The police were reading the words to the salesman's brother, asking him to send a message to his younger brother.
We left the store and observed him with binoculars. One reason was to take some photos, and the other was to go home with him. The same reason applies. His brother would disappear too. It was very cold and windy that day, so we waited in the cold wind. He really went out, looking back every 10 steps. We laughed out loud while looking through the binoculars. Our goal was achieved. People are afraid of the unknown! However, we had no experience, so we failed to track him.
Defeat magic with magic
On the third day, we severed all physical ties with the other party. We could only continue to go to the real estate agency where the salesman's brother worked. The manager was an understanding person and, at our request, assisted in calling the police.
Zinan told the store manager: "His comrades are from the Beijing Economic Investigation Corps. Even if I can't get a penny back, I must ask the police to arrest these people and prevent them from defrauding more people." This is really our true voice. Of course, these words will also be passed on to the other party through the store manager.
Then, we were taken by the police to the address of the "salesman's" brother, but no one was there. Before leaving, the police revealed that these gangs were distributed in a point-like manner, and even if there was a problem at one point, it would be very difficult to trace the source. It was even rarer to successfully recover the money.
I returned home exhausted. As soon as I entered the door, I found that the female staff member I had seen in the studio was talking to my father, trying to make him soften his heart. I snatched the phone and scolded her back. This scolding made me sober up. I found that the money my father transferred to the salesman’s brother was finally transferred to this woman! When Zinan and I went to the "studio", every time this woman came in, the salesman was very nervous. In other words, this woman might be the boss of the gang.
At the same time, the blockchain expert also had new information. He tracked the transfer record of Zinan and Lin Xuan squatting in the "studio" that night, analyzed the transaction information on the chain, followed the clues to lock the other party's several wallet addresses, and even dug out all their transaction records in the past period of time. Based on the transfer time of the father, the complete fraud process was deduced: in order to attract the elderly to invest money, the other party tempted them little by little, starting from 50,000 to 100,000, and then to 200,000. At this stage, they would honestly exchange the money for DAI coins, on the one hand to show the elderly, on the other hand, they could get dividends from the pyramid scheme. When most elderly people could not understand or operate, they directly handed the key to the other party to manage, and these DAI coins were quickly taken away and converted into cash, and later, all the transfers went into the pockets of the middlemen. Blockchain experts roughly estimated that the funds "intercepted" by the "salesman" were actually around 350,000.
I sent the fraud evidence to the other party
Zinan asked me to send the woman a screenshot of my father's financial path, as well as some of the medals of honor he had won in the special forces, and photos of him fighting or preparing to parachute in a helicopter.
That night, the salesman who had sold my dad the Force Coins finally couldn’t sit still anymore and sent a WeChat message to Zinan: “I’m actively raising money. Do you think it’s fun to make such a fuss?” Zinan only sent my father’s bank card number and asked him to pay back the money! The other party also said a lot of soft words, but still did not take any specific measures to pay back the money.
In the next few days, we started to "write the script".
Every day, Zi Nanfang goes to the store where his brother, a salesman, works, takes photos inside and outside the store, writes a big "help letter crime" on the photos, and then sends them to him via text message. This makes him feel as if someone is watching him all the time, so he naturally dares not come to work.
Members of the Metaverse Study Group
I wrote the lawsuit and packed all the evidence, including the other party's identity information, transfer records, team information, Tencent meeting participants, etc., into an electronic folder. Zinan sent another message to the other party, including screenshots of his professional police system comrades' chats and the folder I packed. Zinan told the other party that this was his old battalion commander, who was now in the Economic Investigation Corps of the Municipal Bureau: "If you don't pay back the money, give my old battalion commander a chance to make meritorious service!"
Afterwards, I went to find the police officer who handled the case on the first day and asked him to contact the other party and ask if he was still in Beijing to help us continue to exert pressure. When facing the real police officer, the other party honestly said that he was in XX.
Zinan seized on this clue and continued to put pressure on me, saying, “The old battalion commander asked a certain police station about the progress of the case and said that you are in XX. If you want to run away, the Economic Investigation Corps will take over immediately.” I changed my WeChat profile picture and acted as his old battalion commander to edit the conversation: “Your family’s business is my business!”
I sent the other party a screenshot of the old battalion commander pretending to be Zinan
This is obviously not a "proper" procedure, as it is a half-truth and half-false play. But the other party did "get into the game" and replied that the first payment would be returned tomorrow.
Starting from the next day, 50,000 to 150,000 yuan was returned to my father's account every day. After two or three days, about 520,000 yuan of the old man's money was returned.
It can be seen that from the first day when he refused to pay a penny to the day when all the money was returned, the other party has been weighing the pros and cons, weighing whether he would pay a price after running away, and weighing how much money he would pay before we would give up. In the end, we found that if he didn't pay it all back, the matter would not be over. What makes us really helpless and sad is that if he really ran away, he actually didn't have to pay any price! I don't really have any way.
postscript
My father and I are lucky. Zinan’s wisdom, the blockchain expert’s solid evidence, the police officers’ kindness, my friends, and even a real estate agent I only met once all provided me with tremendous help.
During the writing process, I learned that a friend's mother was defrauded of 1 million yuan by a scammer who claimed to be a Douyin staff. As you can imagine, such victimized families may lose money at the least, or even suffer physical and mental injuries to the elderly, or even the destruction of the family.
The reason I wrote about this "family scandal" is not only to serve as a warning, but also to let us, as children, know what aspects we can improve in order to minimize or prevent such incidents from happening.
To be honest, I don’t think I lack care for my father, but the way I care for him may not be what he wants to see the most. I can actually do better. Zinan’s words also enlightened me. The way you communicate with your father in front of the liar is clearly pushing him to the liar. In other words, my patience with my father is really not as good as that of the liar.
I used to think that my father and I were two independent individuals, and the best situation was not to interfere with each other. But from this incident, I found that he was getting old and his ability to judge right from wrong was weakened. I had to take on more family responsibilities.
I hope to share this reflection with more children.
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