"China Economic Weekly" reporter Song Jie | Shanghai report
In August last year, "China Economic Weekly" published a report "Stop mentioning is now almost two months! Is Plus Token "Yuebao" or a new type of MLM? "At the end of November this year, "boots" finally landed.
On November 26, China Judgment Documents Network published a second-instance criminal ruling (hereinafter referred to as the “ruling”), which is the final judgment on the “PlusToken”, which is known as the largest capital market in the global currency circle. The ruling showed that the appeal was rejected , Uphold the original verdict of the first instance. Among them, the principal culprit Chen Bo committed the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes and was sentenced to 11 years in prison and a fine of 6 million yuan. In addition, the seized digital currency is handled in accordance with the law, and the funds and proceeds obtained are confiscated in accordance with the law and turned over to the state treasury. According to a previous report on the official website of the Ministry of Public Security, the case was the "first large multinational network pyramid scheme using digital currency as a transaction medium" detected by my country’s public security organs. It involved more than 2 million participants and more than 3,000 hierarchical relationships. The total value of digital currency exceeds 40 billion yuan.
According to the aforementioned "ruling", in 2018, Chen Bo, who only had a junior high school education, used the cheated digital currency to realize the purchase of luxury cars and mansions, giving his girlfriend and parents more than 10 million yuan. After squandering money, he went abroad for himself and his associates with foreign nationality.
In March 2020, the Ministry of Public Security deployed public security organs across the country to launch a cluster campaign and captured all 82 key members suspected of pyramid schemes.
self-proclaimed "Coin Circle Yu'ebao" Over one year, 3293 MLM levels have been built.
Plus Token official information shows that Plus Token claims to be a "smart brick-moving wallet" and "Coin Circle Yu'ebao", and investors deposit in Plus Token Bitcoin, Ethereum and other virtual currencies will be replaced with Plus coins provided by PlusToken, and then automatically moved bricks through the "smart dog" (referring to the arbitrage of the same blockchain asset in different markets due to different prices for some reasons Opportunity) way to get benefits. According to its propaganda at the time, the 13-month increase could reach 348 times.
The above investment model seems to be investing in the "currency circle", but in fact it is participating in a 3293-level MLM organization. A reporter from China Economic Weekly noticed that the MLM organization only took more than one year from its establishment to the incident. The
"ruling" shows that at the beginning of 2018, the defendant Chen Bo planned to set up a PlusToken platform to carry out MLM activities based on the concept of blockchain. He successively hired Zheng Jing and Wang Renhu teams to develop, operate and maintain the APP, and established the domain name www. plToken.io website, the platform was officially launched on May 1, 2018. At the same time, Chen Bo, Ding Zanqing, Peng Yixuan, Gu Zhijiang and others established the highest market promotion team of PlusToken platform-Shengshi Alliance Community, and released the introduction of PlusToken platform through WeChat groups, the Internet, irregular meetings, concerts, tourism, etc. , Bonus system, operating model and other promotional materials, fictitious and exaggerated platform strength and profit prospects.
Beginning in May 2018, Chen Bo and Yuan Yuan successively recruited Liu Shuai, Chen Tao and others to engage in customer service and currency exchange work on the PlusToken platform. In August 2018, at the invitation of Ding Zanqing, Lu Wanlong joined the PlusToken platform and was responsible for introducing and connecting with other event organizers and news media in the blockchain field, promoting the platform, and expanding its influence.
It is understood that the PlusToken platform requires participants to obtain membership accounts of the platform through online recommendations, pay more than $500 in digital currency as a threshold fee, and turn on "smart dogs" in order to obtain platform revenue. Members form up and down levels according to the order of joining recommended development, and according to the number of development downline members and the amount of investment funds, the membership levels are divided into five levels: ordinary member, big family, big coffee, great god, and creation. The platform is set up There are three main income methods: intelligent brick moving income, link income, and executive income, which are used to rebate, directly or indirectly based on the number of developers and the amount of payment.
In January 2019, in order to evade legal strikes, Chen Bo and Yuan Yuan moved the platform customer service team and coin transfer team to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and continued to conduct MLM activities on the PlusToken platform.
was appraised by Shanghai Chenxing Electronic Data Judicial Authentication Center: from April 6, 2018 to June 27, 2019, the levelTaiwan has recorded a total of 2,693,500 registered member accounts, of which 1,594,900 are authenticated accounts, and the largest level is 3,293. Appraised by Suzhou Ruiya Certified Public Accountants: As of June 27, 2019, PlusToken platform has collected 314,200 bitcoin (BTC), 117,500 bitcoin cash (BCH), and 96,000 Dash (DASH) paid by members. There are 11.06 billion Dogecoin (DOGE), 1.8477 million Litecoin (LTC), 9,174,200 Ethereum (ETH), 51,363,300 grapefruit (EOS), and 92,800 Ripple (XRP). According to the price recognition center of the Yancheng City Price Bureau, calculated at the lowest price from May 1, 2018 to June 27, 2019, the total of the above eight digital currencies exceeded 14.8 billion yuan. The
criminal leader bought a house, bought a luxury car, and squandered hundreds of millions of yuan. The "ruling" of
also revealed the extravagant life of the trader behind this scam. Before the
case, Chen Bo sold the digital currency to realise more than 145 million yuan through selling coins to pay Jisen, You Shangchun and others. Existing evidence has identified the flow of more than 127 million yuan of stolen money, including more than 2.5 million yuan for the purchase of three cars: more than 720,000 yuan for Chen Qian (Chen Bo’s younger brother) to purchase a Maserati car (detained), A Land Rover Range Rover car was purchased for Chen Qian for 1.05 million yuan, which has been resold by Chen Qian; more than 730,000 yuan was used to purchase a Toyota Land Cruiser for Ding Zanqing (detained). In addition, more than 19.02 million yuan was used to purchase 11 sets of real estate.
The public security organs seized 7,295,990 yuan (of which more than 4 million yuan was stolen money) from Ding Zanqing, and a Toyota; seized a Maserati from Chen Qian; seized a Mercedes-Benz from Gu Zhijiang’s wife Yang Na; from Peng Yixuan The office seized 650,000 yuan of stolen money. The public security organs seized 17 sets of real estate and shops purchased with the money involved in the case. According to a report from the Ministry of Public Security, in order to attract more people to participate, the criminal gang used the Internet to publicize, hire foreign personnel to pretend to be the founders of the platform, and fake the background of its so-called "international platform" and "foreign projects" through irregular meetings, Offline activities such as concerts and tourism have created momentum for the platform's promotion, and even spent a lot of money to hold a thousand-person promotion conference overseas.
From September 14 to 15, 2018, Jeju Island, South Korea held a conference called "WBF World Blockchain Conference", and the Plus Token American Foundation is the naming party of the conference. Related reports show that LEO, the founder of Plus Token, signed an investment cooperation agreement with Silicon Valley Maker Capital Zhao Sheng and Dows Capital lldar. At that time, the Plus Token official website showed that Zhao Sheng was one of the investors of Plus Token. A reporter from China Economic Weekly contacted Zhao Sheng about this, and Zhao Sheng said that he was only charged for the naming fee and was "being stationed." He revealed that Plus Token CEO LEO is a platform hired by the MLM group from Russia. He is not the CEO at all and has already returned to China. Why is the digital currency seized by
not returned to the "leeks", but turned over to the national treasury? It is worth mentioning that there is a sentence in the "ruling": "The seized digital currency shall be handled in accordance with the law, and the funds and proceeds shall be confiscated in accordance with the law and turned over to the state treasury." Many netizens at
asked: "Why these assets are not Return to the deceived'leeks'?" A reporter from China Economic Weekly interviewed lawyer Zeng Jie, a senior partner of Guangqiang Law Firm.
"The point of dispute in this issue is whether ordinary investors and participants in pyramid schemes are victims of criminal cases. If they cannot be identified as victims of criminal cases, the relevant stolen money and goods cannot be refunded as their losses. The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that it shall be confiscated and turned over to the state treasury." Zeng Jie said. Z1z
Zeng Jie analyzed that in MLM activities, relevant personnel are mainly divided into three categories. The first category is organization planners, the second category is to introduce and lure others to participate, and the third category is simply to participate in investors.
From the perspective of administrative supervision, all MLM participation is illegal. According to Article 24 of the Regulations on Prohibition of MLM, there are clear penalties for these three types of personnel. The lightest punishment is for ordinary simple participants. The punishment stipulates thatThe administrative department shall order the cessation of illegal activities and may impose a fine of less than 2,000 yuan. "Z1z
This means that in the field of administrative supervision, even ordinary acts of participation are administrative violations and may be punished. Therefore, it is obviously difficult to identify participants as victims of "criminal crimes" in the criminal field. (Of course, in practice, the industry and commerce regulatory authorities seldom impose penalties on ordinary participants.) According to current judicial practice, in most MLM cases tried across the country, courts have determined that there is a victim and sentenced the defendant There are very few cases where the loss of the victim (victim) is refunded or refunded, or the victim's forgiveness is obtained. In most cases, it is not clear whether there is a victim or the problem of compensation for the loss of the victim. Z1z
Zeng Jie inquired that in 2019, the whole country The number of first-instance verdicts in MLM criminal cases was 2,343, but only 11 of the verdicts clearly returned the victims (Editor’s note: this data is for reference only and is not accurate). Z1z
Zeng Jie further explained that similar issues such as illegal absorption of the public Investors of deposits, although the legal qualitative does not make it clear that they are victims, the judicial interpretation stipulates that they are equal to the victim’s right to obtain compensation, and the investors in the pyramid schemes case did not specify this right. Z1z
Zeng Jie analyzed the case and said that they were heavily involved. At the beginning, they were only users of digital currency wallets. They delivered digital currency to the wallet and entrusted the platform to invest in profit. Whether they were defrauded to pay for related digital currency assets, or they wanted to develop others by paying related digital currency There is a big controversy about the qualification of MLM to obtain the relevant MLM rebate.
“For the underlying participant investors who actually suffered losses in the MLM case, if they did not develop others, they can be deemed to be equivalent to being deceived in a criminal case. The victim, that is, the victim, can be compensated from the stolen money and stolen money of the defendant or the relevant platform involved in the case in judicial processing. "Zeng Jie said. Z1z
Zeng Jie believes that to judge whether a behavior or a platform is suspected of pyramid schemes, it is necessary to observe its overall business operation model. Among them, there are several very important core conditions:
First, whether there is a pyramid structure-PlusToken Z1z
Second, under the pyramid structure, is there a hierarchical rebate system-Plus token link revenue;
Third, is it for the purpose of selling goods or pulling people for the purpose-arbitrage? Whether it really exists.
"If the brick-moving arbitrage activity itself is not enough to support the normal rebate of the whole model, the source of the rebate is the digital currency paid by the new entrant member, that is, the entry fee or the investment amount, then it will become a Ponzi scam. The existence of this Ponzi scheme is the pyramid scheme, which is the key to crime. Zeng Jie said. Z1z
Zeng Jie analyzed that after users deposit digital assets in the wallet, they still own the ownership of the relevant assets. Of course, the wallet will also provide a value-added service, which is to use the digital assets in the wallet to invest. That is to move bricks to arbitrage. This change from storage to entrusted investment behavior is not uncommon in some pyramid schemes or illegal fund-raising cases. Therefore, if you separately evaluate the value-added services of such digital wallets and the behavior of promising benefits, A more appropriate crime should be the crime of illegally absorbing deposits from the public. If the service itself does not exist or the service has significant falseness, it may also be defined as the crime of fundraising fraud. "Considering that in such cases, a large number of digital currencies Or related assets are used for user rebates, and related benefits are given to related members through a hierarchical rebate structure. Therefore, many case-handling agencies will still classify such cases as pyramid schemes. "Zeng Jie said. Z1z
Editor: Yang Baihui
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