Worker's Daily - Huang Shiqiang, reporter of China Industrial Network, correspondent Ran Xiaoqing, Wu Jiajia

"Congratulations on being selected as a lucky customer. Now you can buy XX jade seals at a low price; the collection can appreciate in the short term, and the company can sell it on behalf of others without loss..." Once, a "collection craze" swept the circle of elderly friends, and many elderly people suffered. Now, the seemingly outdated technique is making a comeback.

Recently, the fraud case of Zhao, which was prosecuted by the Wuxi County Procuratorate in Chongqing, was officially sentenced, successfully exposing the routine of pension fraud.

Back in February 2021, Mr. Xia, a resident of Wuxi County who likes to collect red souvenirs, received a phone call. The other party claimed to be Mr. Zhao, the head of a cultural center, and he had a variety of souvenirs and collectibles in his hands.

"Now is the member recruitment activity. After becoming a member, our collection, which is once in a century, will be" discounted ". The original price of" XXX jade seal "and" XXX emblem treasure ", which are 29800 yuan and 25800 yuan, will be available at 4900 yuan and 3980 yuan..." Under this exciting "promotion", Mr. Xia immediately placed an order for two "jade seals" and paid 8880 yuan by cash on delivery.

Mr. Xia thought that he could use his pension money to increase the value of investment this time, so he bought jade seals, commemorative banknotes, commemorative medals and other collections six times in just six months without his family's knowledge, spending a total of 12817 yuan.

"The jade seal is rough in texture, and the identification agency on the certificate does not exist, so it is not worth money at all. These people are liars." As soon as the goods are available, Mr. Xia's family realized that something was wrong, and called the police in August 2021 for help. The public security organ immediately filed a case for investigation, and arrested Zhao and others on April 22, 2022.

According to the investigation, from April 2019 to April 2022, Mr. Zhao funded the establishment of a company in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, and recruited several sales personnel. He invented the identities of staff in a cultural center, a museum or a health center, and used the summarized "scripts" to conduct fictitious member recruitment, brand promotion and other activities through telephone calls, WeChat chat and other means, And forged relevant identification certificates to induce the victim to buy inexpensive "XX anniversary gold banknotes", "necklace tags" and other products. After obtaining the trust of the victim, induce the victim to buy more expensive products in the same way as above.

Because most of the victims are elderly people, the amount involved is high and the social impact is great, in October 2022, the Wuxi County Procuratorate sent personnel to intervene in the case in advance to guide the public security organ to investigate from many aspects, such as company registration, express receipt and bank flow.

"Most of the victims in this case are elderly people over 60 years old. Most of them do not know collection knowledge, have low education level, and have weak identification ability. They think that having a certificate is the real thing. They also lack some knowledge of the fraud script, and they do not have enough vigilance. This is the main reason why criminals often succeed." The undertaking prosecutor introduced to his right.

On January 3, 2023, the case was transferred to the Wuxi County Procuratorate for examination and prosecution.

"The case data shows that Zhao runs two companies, but we found in the review process that Zhao actually controls the other two companies, and the direction of investigation should not be limited to the operation of the previous two companies." In order to find out the facts of the case and further improve the evidence chain, the court actively guided the public security organs to supplement investigation, On June 15 of the same year, Zhao and others were prosecuted for fraud.

During the review and prosecution, Zhao has always argued that there is a return channel, and the victim is free to buy and sell, which does not constitute a crime of fraud. "In the process of review, we found that the gang did not return goods and refund them in this way, and the so-called return channel was totally non-existent, in fact, to prevent the victims from protecting their rights through law on this ground." Xiang Qiquan proposed the idea of obtaining evidence when discussing the case, and continued to dig carefully from the financial data in the U disk involved in the case.

Later, after re combing and re supplementing the evidence, the prosecutor repeatedly compared the victim's report materials, transfer records, financial data and other evidence materials. It was verified that Zhao and others had cheated more than 3000 elderly people, totaling more than 5.6 million yuan.

Due to the complexity of the case, after several court hearings, the court of Wuxi County made a judgment of first instance on April 22, 2024. The defendant, Zhao, committed the crime of fraud and was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment with a fine of 120000 yuan. At the same time, he was ordered to continue to refund and compensate within the amount of the crime involved.

"The savings of the elderly are an important guarantee for them to spend their old age in peace. With the special action of" protecting people's livelihood "as the starting point, our hospital adheres to the principle of" chasing after every possible cause "in handling elderly fraud cases, runs through the whole process of judicial handling, and recovers the losses of victims to the maximum extent." Ruan Nengwen, the chief procurator of Wuxi County Procuratorate, said that the next step, The hospital will improve the long-term mechanism of cracking down on pension fraud, continue to innovate working methods, increase the publicity of cracking down on pension fraud, effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly in the jurisdiction, and create a good legal and social environment.