Source: Supreme People's Procuratorate
Trial Site
"The existence of the global blockchain public chain has achieved mutual benefit and mutual exchange, exchange of mutually required equivalents or matching working capital, and achieving supply and demand balance, which means that mineral resources can be circulated worldwide. This is the registered place of the world's first mine, Jinzang International Mining Investment Holding Group (hereinafter referred to as "Jinzang International". The item "Jinzang International" Previously, there has been a pattern of mining dozens of minerals such as granite, marble, and gold mines all over the world. It has large-scale mineral cooperation projects with dozens of countries to digitize huge mineral resources. The world's first encrypted mineral resources digital asset GTA was born..."
I believe that many people will think that "Jinzang International" is a global high-end enterprise, especially after personally participating in the so-called summit forum organized by it, they will believe it. But the fact is that the so-called open, compatible and mutually enjoyable high-end digital assets are nothing more than a pyramid scheme scam. On June 8, 2018, the Bincheng District Procuratorate of Shandong Province filed a public prosecution against 12 criminal suspects who have been arrested on "Jinzang International" for the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes. Recently, the Bincheng District Court held a public trial of the case and will announce the verdict at a later date.
pyramid scheme network quietly formed
In 2016, "Jinzang International" made a lot of publicity through the Internet, high-end forums, distribution of publicity materials, and other methods, lying that it has large-scale mineral cooperative development projects in dozens of countries, with the value of exploration reserves and controllable minerals reaching more than 20 trillion yuan. At the same time, without the relevant qualifications, "Jinzang International" issued a digital asset GTA, saying that one GTA was connected to 1 square meter of granite of Hebei Yixian Mining Co., Ltd., and lied that the GTA had room for appreciation and only rose but not fell.
In order to further increase the intensity of false publicity, "Jinzang International" signed a sales contract for granite with the mining company in Yi County, Hebei Province, and held the world's first digital asset benchmarking physical mining press conference on December 31, 2016. The contract signed by the two parties states that "Jinzang International" and the mining company have reached a pre-sale order of RMB 35 billion, with a total of RMB 175 per square meter of granite. But in fact, the mining company can only provide 300 million yuan of granite. When it proposed that "there is no need to sign such a large contract", "Jinzang International" said that they are international mining companies with sales channels and the contract can be terminated at any time. In March 2017, Peng from "Jinzang International" led more than 10 people to the top of the granite mine in Yixian County , and pulled out a huge red banner that cooperated with "Jinzang International" and Yixian Mining Co., Ltd. This pre-sale order of 35 billion yuan has become another gimmick in the promotion of "Jinzang International". While
is promoting it, the "Jinzang International" member network management platform is also stepping up its research and development, and the platform began to operate in early 2017. "Jinzang International" claims to invest 3,500 yuan, 21,000 yuan, 70,000 yuan, or 210,000 yuan to purchase GTA, and you can register as a member of "Jinzang International" on the platform, and then you can obtain static and dynamic returns. The higher the amount of investment, the more people you can get commissions.
According to the rules announced by the platform, the performance award is a dual-track system. Two members can be placed under each member, and two members can be placed under these two members, and so on, forming a pyramid-like structure. Each member has two major teams, and 9% to 13% of the team's smaller performance among the two major teams is the performance award for the member. Performance awards are issued once a day, and the investment amount is capped. It is a typical basis for developing the number of members as the basis for rebates, which induces participants to continue to develop members, thereby forming a distinctive personnel pyramid scheme network.
The official operation of this platform indicates that the layout of the "Jinzang International" pyramid scheme network has been quietly formed.
absorbed 270 million yuan in more than two months
"Jinzang International" preliminary publicity and operation of the online platform laid the foundation for GTA's sales, and the addition of the defendant Zhou Sheng and others made him even more powerful.Zhou Sheng and Du Hong, the actual controller of "Jinzang International", have known each other for a long time. After learning about the "Jinzang International" project, the two sides held many consultations and finally reached an agreement: Zhou Sheng led the Guangzhou Jucai team to achieve the "strong alliance" between Jucai team and "Jinzang International" by purchasing 15 million yuan GTA.
On April 27, 2017, "Jinzang International" leased 7 rooms on the 23rd floor of Building 4, No. 128, South Fourth Ring West Road, Fengtai District, Beijing. As the office of "Jinzang International", it has the President's Office, Customer Service Department, Logistics Department, Jinzang Business School and other departments. Dong Wenwu, who joined by Zhou Sheng, was appointed CEO of "Jinzang International". The customer service department is responsible for solving related problems arising from member franchise, the logistics department is responsible for ensuring operation, and the business school is responsible for lecturer training, explaining the "Jinzang International" business model to members. The big characters "Jinzang International" in the office area are shining brightly, and all kinds of facilities are available, making it increasingly famous for the image and style of an international enterprise.
On May 14, the "Jinzang International Digital Asset Digital Summit Forum" organized by "Jinzang International" was held in Wuqing, Tianjin. The scene was grand and magnificent, with more than 1,000 participants. Sales representatives from all over the country, representatives of "Jinzang International" Jucai Group, chairman of "Jinzang International", CEO Dong Wenwu, operation director Yu Ping, vice president Yan Nan, owner of Hebei Yixian Mining Company, etc. stepped on the red carpet and walked towards the front row in the welcoming of the participants. The agenda of various meetings was carried out in an orderly manner, the signing ceremony between "Jinzang International" and Hebei Yixian Mining, the explanation of GTA digital assets, the appointment of the vice president, etc. The atmosphere of the venue ignited the enthusiasm of every member of the meeting.
The grand convening of the Wuqing Conference has attracted a large number of members for "Jinzang International", and Li Ling is one of them. In April 2017, Li Ling was pulled into a WeChat group of "Jinzang International" by her WeChat friend Yang Minghe. After gaining a general understanding of "Jinzang International", she was invited to attend the Wuqing Conference. After the incident, Li Ling confessed: "The conference is very grand and there are many people going there. I really feel that many successful people are signing the contract, so I believe in this project." Based on this, Li Ling joined "Jinzang International" and became Yang Minghe's offline. Those who went with her also joined "Jinzang International" and became members.
After the Tianjin Wuqing Conference, the sales of "Jinzang International" GTA grew rapidly, and there were endless people visiting and negotiating the office area of "Jinzang International" every day, and sometimes the daily income can reach more than 17 million yuan. From May 14, 2017 to July 26, 2017, over two months, the funds collected by the "Jinzang International" account have absorbed as much as more than 270 million yuan.
In mid-July 2017, the network security department of the public security organ found in daily network supervision that there were related contents of promoting "Jinzang International" in the WeChat group of users in the jurisdiction. After summarizing clues, the investigators found that "Jinzang International" was suspected of pyramid schemes. On July 20, the Binzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau filed a case for investigation. On the 26th, Yu Ping, the operation director of Jinzang International, and Zhao Dongshan, the technical director, were arrested and brought to justice by Binzhou police. On the 29th, Li Ling was arrested in Binzhou. In early August, Zhou Sheng and others brought 6 million yuan in cash to Binzhou and were also arrested and brought to justice. By May 3, 2018, Yang Minghe surrendered, a total of 12 defendants were arrested in this case. Du Hong and others said they went to the United States for a meeting and did not return home.
Any way to make profits by pyramid scheme organizations is accomplished by developing offline members. During the case handling, the procuratorate found that in addition to using traditional methods to develop offline, the defendants who were arrested by "Jinzang International" also used new methods such as WeChat groups to develop offline, and even purchased "Jinzang Robots" to teach members in the group to expand their impact on members.
12 defendants were tried
After the investigation of the persons in the case was completed, the public security organs transferred the case to the Bincheng District Procuratorate of Binzhou City for review and prosecution. Xiu Juan, head of the Public Prosecution Section of the Court, detailed the 18 files of this case, produced objective and direct tree drawings, and detailed the downline personnel of Li Ling, the defendant Li Ling, the lowest level, and finally determined that Li Ling had reached the prosecution standards for organizing and leading pyramid schemes. At the same time, Xiujuan found that some of the online personnel were clear in their identities but were still on the run. It was recommended that the public security organs increase their arrests.
In this case, the most critical and most difficult thing is the determination of the role, level, number of people downlined and amount of funds absorbed. The prosecutor found that some defendants defended their behavior: Zhou Sheng said that he was just the nominal chairman, Dong Wenwu said that he was the CEO who was not worthy of his name, and Yan Nan said that he was just the nominal vice president, and they were all personnel who made a brilliant appearance on the red carpet in the 2017 Wuqing Conference. Based on this, the prosecutor promptly guided the public security organs to fix the evidence, retrieve the on-site video of the Wuqing meeting, and burned the CD to find the key nodes that reflect the role of the defendant, further analyze the defenses of each defendant, and produced a detailed review report. At the same time, an outline of the interrogation was formulated for the defendant's defense. When interrogating the defendant, a detailed and powerful interrogation was conducted on the defense proposed by the defendant, the previous confession, and the contradictions with other defendants' confessions, and many defendants could not justify themselves.
Xiujuan introduced that one of the standards for prosecution of organizing and leading pyramid schemes is that the level and personnel participating in pyramid schemes meet the statutory conditions. In the determination of this case, the public security organs assessed the backend data of "Jinzang International" and deduplicated the more than 90,000 registered members in the database. That is, if any of the names, ID numbers, contact numbers and last login IP addresses of the two accounts are the same, then count them as one. After deduplication, there are 13,054 member accounts, and this is ultimately used as the basis for conviction.
The law stipulates that if the crime of organizing or leading pyramid schemes is serious, the crime of organizing or leading pyramid schemes shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than five years and a fine (the specific circumstances include the total amount of 120 people involved in pyramid schemes by organizing or leading pyramid schemes directly or indirectly withdrawing the amount of pyramid scheme funds paid by the person participating in pyramid schemes reaches more than 2.5 million yuan). During the review, the prosecutor found that some defendants absorbed members but did not meet the criteria for serious circumstances, but some defendants once confessed that in the backend management of their account network, the total performance of Area A and Area B was the total amount of funds they absorbed. The prosecutor reviewed the files in detail again and found from a screenshot of Li Ling's backend network that the total performance of Area A and Area B were much more than 2.5 million yuan. In the end, all the defendants in the case were determined to be serious.
During the trial, 16 lawyers sat in the defense seats, and the defendant and the defense lawyer put forward a variety of defense and defense opinions. The prosecutor responded to the defense and defense. (Procuratorial Daily Guo Shuhe)
