In October 2015, the Ministry of Public Security directed and deployed public security agencies in Hunan and Guangdong to close down the "1·09" project, successfully arresting 98 criminal suspects and freezing more than 3,000 illegal settlement fund accounts. This operation cut off the "personnel chain", "financial chain" and "technical chain" of Xu's criminal gang, and attacked online gambling from the source. This case is a classic example of my country’s recent efforts to completely destroy a large cross-border organized criminal group that integrated gambling website development, maintenance, leasing, and casino opening.
Elaborate research and judgment to accurately crack down on the funds, personnel, and technology chains of criminal groups
Back then, the illegal "Mark Six Lottery" gambling originated from the Pearl River Delta and eastern Guangdong regions and was spread to rural areas in Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei and other places by migrant workers returning home. The problem is very serious. Yueyang City in Hunan Province was once an area hardest hit by gambling. When the underground "Mark Six Lottery" was at its most widespread, the streets were empty when the numbers were opened. People stopped production and life and went to buy numbers to open numbers. With the increasing intensity of police crackdowns and the popularization of the Internet, the underground "Mark Six Lottery" has shifted from the ground to the Internet, from open to dark, and the amount of bets has increased year by year. In this regard, the Public Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security has specially deployed key areas to conduct concentrated research and judgment to crack down on the source of online gambling criminal gangs.
On September 15, 2014, the Yueyang Municipal Public Security Bureau discovered that someone had logged into a gambling website at the Apollo Hotel, and immediately launched a case investigation.
"This type of website looks like you use an email to log in, but there is no registration function. Through data analysis and classification, there are various signs that there may be a professional team behind it." Peng Zhihong, the Cybercrime Investigation Team of the Yueyang Municipal Public Security Bureau, said.
After investigation, it was found that the backend operations and maintenance of these gambling websites all come from the same IP address. The address is located in Haowei Technology Building, Science and Technology Park, Nanshan District, Shenzhen. The user is a network technology company in Shenzhen. As a result, the source of the case points directly to Guangdong.
After the case was reported, the Ministry of Public Security attached great importance to it and set up a task force, code-named "1·09", and listed it as a special action to "break the chain", led by Liu, director of the Public Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security. Shao Wu was appointed as the leader of the task force leading group, which clearly focused on the Hunan Provincial Public Security Department, with the assistance of the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department, to fight an encirclement and annihilation battle in Guangdong to capture the top underground "Mark Six Lottery" criminal group headed by Xu Mouhui.
On July 2, 2015, the Ministry of Public Security closed down the criminal suspects of the "1·09" project. During the arrest operation, the police from Hunan and Guangdong were divided into 18 arrest teams, which carried out arrests simultaneously in five areas: Shantou, Jieyang, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Dongguan. A total of 84 suspects were arrested, and online gambling was destroyed. There are 12 dens, and the involved accounts of 14 bank head offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have been frozen.
However, if the “technical chain” still exists, gambling websites will easily “resurgence”. Subsequently, the Ministry of Public Security organized a second arrest operation on September 18, and arrested the website developers of the Xu criminal gang hiding in Jieyang, Guangdong. It is understood that all the technical personnel of this criminal gang in China have been arrested, the "technical chain" has been cut off, and the gambling website has lost its foundation for survival.
“MLM-style” expansion Mainly "reputable" car driver part-time gambling website "major shareholder"
Investigation by the public security agency found that the criminal suspect Xu Mouhui relied on the lottery cycles of Hong Kong's "Mark Six Lottery" and domestic "Shishi Lottery" and other lottery platforms to create a variety of prize winning methods and The gameplay is developed and operated by an Internet company in Shenzhen and provided by an Internet company in Taiwan. More than 500 gambling websites have been developed and established.
According to intercepted statistics from the group’s network: the group has developed nearly 1 million gambling members in China, with more than 120,000 people online at the same time, and the amount of betting is particularly huge. The reporter learned that taking the seized website "Zhongsheng" as an example, between August 2 and 21, 2014, the website accepted a total of 9 bets, with an amount of 55 million yuan.
This batch of gambling websites with domain names with the "us" logo, each website is divided into six levels from top to bottom: company, major shareholder, shareholder, general agent, agent, and member. People at various levels develop offline among relatives, friends and acquaintances in a way similar to pyramid schemes, and thus receive a "rebate" of about 13% of the betting amount. Those who obtain the "security code" of the entry account get the "golden password" to participate in gambling.
In addition to his career as a driver, Qiu Mouxiang, who works in Shenzhen, also has another identity - the major shareholder of "Shunying Gambling Website". For him, developing offline is a good thing that can earn extra money to support his family without wasting time. "Just turn on the computer and look at it, copy the numbers, see who needs to be charged and paid, and it's done in the time it takes to go to the toilet."
From "agent" to "major shareholder", Qiu Mouxiang I never participate in gambling, I only get "rebates". "My responsibility is to develop customers, introduce friends to join, develop members, and give out account passwords." Qiu Mouxiang said, "The higher the level, the more customers we can develop. The more people place bets, the rebates we earn. The higher. For example, the above gives me 1. For a 3% rebate, I will give 12.8% to the people below, and I will earn the 0.2% rebate." But until he reached the "major shareholder" level, Qiu Mouxiang did not receive huge profits in the past two years. Qiu Mouxiang only "earned" more than 100,000 yuan.
So, where did the huge gambling money go?
opens a casino The criminal group that rents out websites crazily collects hundreds of millions of dollars
"Xu Mouhui organized and operated some of these websites and opened casinos, making a monthly profit of about 5 million yuan. In addition, he used more than 300 of them to The website is rented to dedicated operators at a monthly rent of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan. The monthly rent of the website alone is more than 13 million yuan. According to statistics, from 2013 to June 2015, the Xu Group collected as much as 500 million yuan. ” introduced Dai Kejian, deputy captain of the Public Security Detachment of Yueyang Municipal Public Security Bureau.
It is understood that the 39-year-old Xu Mouhui’s one high-end residence in Shenzhen No. 1 Ecological Garden is worth more than 40 million yuan. His criminal associates in the same group all drive luxury cars, live in luxury houses, and some even keep mistresses.
Fan from "Hengda Gambling Company" rented 7 gambling websites from Xu Mouhui and hired 8 relatives and fellow villagers to run the websites for himself. Their average age is in their 20s, and they are responsible for accounting, trading, adjusting odds and limits for these seven gambling websites.
"The market opens every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 or 5 pm. Before the market opens, we adjust the odds, and then everyone places their bets. Based on the odds of 43, if there are many people betting, we will lower the odds, and the number of people betting will be lowered. If it’s less, it’ll increase. Odds, this can control the risk. The more people place bets, the greater the chance of winning for banker . "In the detention center, Chen Mouliang, who was born in 1992, looks childish. He is Fan's cousin and has a junior high school education. He was called by his cousin to help with the reconciliation work.
"Each customer has a credit limit, and they gamble first and pay later. Different users have different credit limits, ranging from a few million to tens of millions. The customer allocates the credit limit to the following shareholders and agents. As long as the gambling funds are delivered As long as there are no problems, the amount can be increased according to their needs. So far, no customer has invested in an amount they can’t afford, and there has never been any dishonesty. What we do is credibility.” Chen Mouliang explained quite "proudly".
Low crime threshold, violent debt collection is frequent, and online gambling brings huge harm to society
The police handling the case said that there are many ways to play online gambling, but it is not complicated. Gambling participants initially bet for free, with a credit limit of 50,000 yuan. If they win, they will be paid directly. If they lose, they can issue an IOU first.
In this way, the pyramid scheme among relatives and friends to promote ginseng gambling, the " Internet + " criminal method, the extremely attractive odds and the "bet now, pay later" credit system have greatly lowered the threshold for gambling crimes and raised the It attracts people who are lucky.
"Members at the bottom of the criminal hierarchy not only bet on their own, but some also 'write orders' for others. Those who want to gamble can call members to place orders, and members will take 12% of the bet amount. It is convenient to place orders over the phone, and it also No evidence will be left," said Xie Efei, deputy captain of the Public Security Detachment of Yueyang Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Usually, the person who bets and the person who writes the order do not know each other or meet each other, and there is no need to pay money when placing bets. When the quota is used up and settled, someone will come to collect the money. "The dealers of the underground Mark Six Lottery have connections with some indolent young people, and they ask them to collect gambling funds when necessary." According to the police, Yueyang County had only 2015 cases of illegal detention caused by collecting gambling debts. There were more than 10 cases. "On the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2015, Liu, who lives in Yueyang County, owed more than 300,000 yuan in gambling money and was unable to repay it and went into hiding. The bookmaker asked several young people around 18 years old to find him and drove him to the reservoir to threaten him with violence. , forcing him to pay an IOU, and then placed him under house arrest, and used the IOU to threaten Liu’s family to pay back the money.”
Cao, a villager in the western suburbs of Miluo Town, Miluo City, started gambling online in August 2014. He lost 450,000 yuan in less than a year. In addition to Cao’s mother’s loan, which helped him repay more than 100,000 yuan, Cao also He also carried a debt of more than 200,000 yuan, which is still difficult to pay off.
Yuan Chunli, a resident of the Laojie Neighborhood Committee of Chengguan Town, Yueyang County, once told reporters, "I have a classmate whose husband runs an oilseed factory and earns more than 100,000 yuan a year. The family has two houses and lives a relatively comfortable life. Later, She bought Mark Six Lottery, and when I met her while shopping for groceries, she asked me to borrow money, and she asked me to borrow 20,000 yuan. Later, she lost two houses. She owed 500,000 yuan, and her neighbors and friends eventually ran away, got divorced, and went bankrupt. "
Some small bookmakers misappropriated other people's gambling funds for gambling. After losing, the small bookmakers were unable to compensate. They often choose to run away and hide, causing some gamblers to take extreme measures, such as kidnapping, illegal detention, etc. to force the bookmakers to cash out. At the same time, those who participate in gambling can continue to place orders only if their credit limit is used up and the lost money is paid off. People look forward to getting rich, but sometimes they cannot afford it before they can get their money back, and they go bankrupt, or even flee or commit suicide to escape debt. Online gambling has caused a large loss of local funds, which not only seriously hindered the economic development of Yueyang City , but also caused many social security problems, seriously affecting the production and life of the people.
Be long-term and brave. The public security organs are making every effort to break through the investigation bottleneck
Because criminals use fake ID cards, mobile phone black cards, etc. to create false identity information as a cover-up, online data and identities are forged. The separation of online identity and real person, and how to implement the case, is a major bottleneck encountered by the police in the investigation process.
Wu, the person in charge of the research and development of "Shishicai" of an Internet company who was arrested this time, explained after the incident that the Internet company changed its workplace four times in order to avoid being cracked down. During this period, the company name was also changed many times, and the names of the company's employees were also changed. Mobile phones, computers, etc. are all equipped uniformly. Once he discovers that the situation is not right, Xu Mouhui immediately takes back and destroys these communication and research and development tools.
Under the giant screen of the virtual network, the police officers handling the case gradually grasped the levels of the entire gang chain by sifting, sorting, classifying and sorting out a large amount of information such as website gambling transaction records, phone messages, bank statements, and personnel information collected in the early stage. Relationships and person identities.
In order to find out the criminal pattern of the gang and the behavioral patterns of the criminal suspects, the police investigated and locked down the activity areas of the criminal suspects and stayed there for several months to obtain the criminal facts, put the case to rest and lay a solid foundation for the investigation of the case.
