In 2017, there were 5052 new cases of suspected illegal fund-raising in China, involving 179.55 billion yuan, down by 2.8% and 28.5% respectively year-on-year. From January to March 2018, there were 1037 new cases of illegal fund-raising involving 26.9 billion yuan, down by 16.5% and 42.3% respectively year-on-year. However, the total number of cases is still running at a high level, the number of people involved in fund-raising continues to rise, cross-provincial cases continue to occur frequently, and the overall situation is still grim.
(Reporter Cheng Jie) Yesterday, the "2018 Legal Policy Publicity Symposium on Prevention and Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising" was held in China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. The Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference on Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising and other member units such as the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Commerce, People’s Bank of China and China Securities Regulatory Commission introduced the current situation of illegal fund-raising, the characteristics of illegal fund-raising in various fields and the next work arrangement.
Cases of illegal fund-raising continue to "double down"
But the overall situation is still grim.
According to statistics, illegal fund-raising cases continue to "double down", but the overall situation is still grim. According to the statistics of the Joint Conference Office, in 2017, there were 5,052 new cases of suspected illegal fund-raising in China, involving 179.55 billion yuan, down by 2.8% and 28.5% respectively year-on-year. From January to March 2018, there were 1,037 new cases of illegal fund-raising involving 26.9 billion yuan, down by 16.5% and 42.3% respectively year-on-year. However, the total number of cases is still running at a high level, the number of people involved in fund-raising continues to rise, inter-provincial cases continue to occur frequently, and serious cases involving many provinces and even the whole country still occur from time to time, and the overall situation is still grim.
At present, the new cases of illegal fund-raising in China are almost all over the industry, showing the characteristics of "blooming everywhere", and the cases of investment and financing intermediaries, internet financial platforms, real estate, agriculture and other key industries continue to be high. A large number of non-licensed institutions such as private investment and financing institutions and Internet platforms engage in fund-raising activities in violation of laws and regulations, accounting for more than 30% of the total. Cases are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas and populous provinces in the central and western regions, but cases in small and medium-sized cities, urban-rural areas and rural areas are gradually increasing, and the potential risks cannot be ignored.
Judging from the case, the trend of illegal fund-raising is becoming more and more obvious, and the combination of online and offline has spread faster and covered a wider range, which has greatly broken through the geographical boundaries. The areas involved have spread rapidly from the east to the central and western regions, and from first-and second-tier cities to third-and fourth-tier cities. In addition to the original high-incidence areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan and Shandong, Beijing, Hebei, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Yunnan and Anhui have become new high-incidence areas.
Major cases occur frequently.
It is difficult to handle the case.
Relevant persons in the Supreme People’s Court said that from 2015 to 2017, the number of new cases of illegal fund-raising in national courts increased by 108.23%, 36.7% and 6.13% respectively. From 2015 to 2017, the criminal cases of illegal fund-raising increased by 70.1%, 76.2% and 22.2% respectively. Since 2015, the number of illegal fund-raising crimes has increased by spurt. Although the growth rate has slowed down, the number of cases has remained at a high level and the trial task is heavy.
At the same time, major cases are frequent and it is difficult to handle cases. At present, there is a high incidence of illegal fund-raising cases. Major cases and important cases across provinces such as "e-renting treasure" and "Pan-Asia" appear constantly, and the amount involved keeps rising, from millions and tens of millions to billions, tens of billions or even hundreds of billions; The number and scale of fund-raising participants are also increasing, from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, millions or even millions. Most cases are often committed after the capital chain is broken, and the money illegally raised has often been used to pay high interest, enterprise operation and operating expenses, as well as criminals’ profligacy, so it is difficult to recover losses.
According to incomplete statistics, among the new illegal fund-raising cases in 2016, there were 190 inter-provincial cases, 345 cases in which the fund-raising amount exceeded 100 million yuan, and 235 cases in which the number of fund-raisers exceeded 1,000. The case of "e-renting treasure" is the largest illegal fund-raising case since the founding of New China, involving more than 76.2 billion yuan, involving more than 1.15 million fund-raising participants, involving 31 provinces and cities across the country, with an unpaid gap of more than 38 billion yuan, making it very difficult to try and handle the case.
Illegal fund-raising has a wide range of fields
Renovation of means and patterns
From the introduction of the heads of the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security and other departments, the illegal fund-raising in the whole country is characterized by a wide range of fields and various criminal means.
At present, cases in traditional fields such as commodity marketing, resource development, planting and breeding, investment guarantee and so on occur from time to time, and the trend of spreading from physical products to financial fields is obvious. Under the guise of catering to national policies and under the guise of "financial innovation", "new economic format" and "capital operation", criminals have changed from planting and breeding and resource development to investment and wealth management, peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, futures, equity and virtual currency, which is more confusing, and new crimes such as "financial mutual assistance", consumption rebate and pension investment have emerged one after another. In particular, the crime of illegal fund-raising on the Internet has become a common mode, with more prominent cross-border characteristics and faster infection accumulation.
In addition, the fund-raising means have been refurbished, making it more difficult to identify them. Some lawless elements package and design so-called projects and products layer by layer, hyping up the current "hot terms" and "hot concepts" to lure the public into investing. Some cases with no goods and no entities and the title of "virtual task" have appeared one after another. Many illegal fund-raising rely on the Internet platform, and recently there have been behaviors such as illegal fund-raising by relying entirely on WeChat groups, which are highly concealed and risk-spreading, and the risks cannot be ignored. In addition, the interweaving characteristics of illegal fund-raising with pyramid schemes, fraud and other crimes are more prominent in some fields and regions, and the phenomenon of "word of mouth" and "acquaintances pulling acquaintances" in illegal fund-raising in rural areas is obvious, which brings greater difficulties to prevention and crackdown.
Promote the Regulations on Disposal of Illegal Fund-raising.
Come out as soon as possible
According to reports, in 2018, the inter-ministerial joint meeting on handling illegal fund-raising will, in accordance with relevant arrangements and requirements, push all relevant departments in various localities to further intensify their work and resolutely hold the bottom line that no systemic risks will occur.
This year, the system construction will be strengthened and the Regulations on Disposal of Illegal Fund Raising will be promulgated as soon as possible. Thoroughly study new problems, sum up laws, and actively promote and cooperate with relevant departments to establish and improve relevant legal systems.
At the same time, strengthen monitoring and early warning. Further integrate resources and promote the establishment and improvement of a three-dimensional, socialized and information-based monitoring and early warning system in various places. Increase the publicity and implementation of the reward system for reporting. Establish a normalized risk investigation mechanism that combines online and offline. Strengthen the prevention and control of Internet risks and curb the spread of illegal fund-raising risks through the Internet.
In addition, publicity will be further strengthened. In 2018, the joint meeting will continue to organize three key activities: prevention of illegal fund-raising publicity month activities, illegal fund-raising risk investigation activities and suspected illegal fund-raising advertising information investigation and cleaning activities.
Special reminder
Be wary of 10 kinds of "investment and financial management"
A person from the Ministry of Public Security said that in 2017, public security organs across the country filed more than 8,600 cases of illegal fund-raising, and the number of cases was running at a high level. There are many serious cases. In 2017, there were 50 cases involving more than 100 million yuan, and billions and billions of yuan were involved, resulting in huge economic losses.
The public security organs remind the masses to be vigilant in case of "investment" and "financial management" projects under any of the following circumstances:
1. Under the guise of "watching advertisements, earning extra money" and "consumer rebate";
2. Under the guise of investing in overseas equity, options, foreign exchange and precious metals;
3. Under the guise of high returns or "free" pension by investing in the pension industry;
4. Under the guise of private equity and partnership, but not for enterprise industrial and commercial registration registration;
5. Under the guise of investing in "virtual currency" and "blockchain";
6. Under the guise of "poverty alleviation", "charity" and "mutual assistance";
7. Distributing advertisements in the streets or supermarkets;
8. Recruit elderly people by organizing inspection, tourism and lectures;
9 "investment" and "wealth management" companies, websites and servers are overseas;
10. Require to pay investment funds in cash or to personal accounts or overseas accounts.
Released by all parties
Central Bank: The virtual currency trading places that have been touched have basically achieved risk-free exit.
In response to virtual currency trading places such as ICO and Bitcoin suspected of illegal fund-raising and illegal securities activities, the central bank and relevant ministries and commissions issued timely announcements to clarify attitudes and warn of risks, and deployed various localities to carry out rectification. At present, the ICO platform and virtual currency trading places such as Bitcoin, which have been exhausted nationwide, have basically achieved risk-free exit.
The relevant person in charge of the central bank said that the current situation of illegal fund-raising in the field of Internet finance has four characteristics: First, the trend of specialization is obvious. Some illegal organizations and individuals engage in internet finance business under the pretext of catering to national policies, and rely on specific projects and online investment targets to package professional and standardized contract texts and business processes, which is extremely confusing and increases the difficulty for investors to identify.
Second, new ways of illegal fund-raising emerge one after another. With the deepening of the special rectification work, the risks in the main areas of Internet finance have been effectively identified and controlled, but new businesses are constantly emerging.
The third is the combination of online promotion and offline promotion. Some illegal fund-raising platforms develop personnel to join through online hype and offline store promotion, and collect money quickly in a short period of time. Due to the large number and dispersion of investors, once the platform runs out of problems, it is difficult for investors to recover their funds.
Fourth, "bulls are outside" to avoid regulatory attacks. Some people involved in illegal fund-raising evade domestic regulatory attacks by hiding abroad, renting overseas servers to build online fund-raising platforms, and illegally transferring funds involved abroad, which makes it more difficult to detect cases. Photo courtesy/vision china
Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development: There are Internet financial platforms that use crowdfunding to buy houses and illegally raise funds.
A person from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said that the illegal fund-raising activities in the real estate industry have the following characteristics: First, illegal fund-raising is carried out in the form of dividing sales and promising after-sales charter; Second, illegal pre-sale of commercial housing disguised financing or "one room to sell more"; The third is to raise funds from the public in the name of real estate projects and promise high interest rates. In addition, in recent years, there has been a phenomenon of illegal fund-raising by means of crowdfunding to buy a house on the Internet financial platform.
In order to effectively stop the behavior of "selling more than one room" to defraud the purchase price and maliciously defraud loans, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development urged and guided all localities to speed up the online signing and filing of housing transaction contracts, ensure the authenticity of projects and transactions, effectively protect the security of housing transactions and maintain the order of the real estate market. By the end of December 2017, all 339 cities at or above the prefecture level in China had achieved online signing and filing of new commercial housing, and 260 cities had achieved online signing and filing of second-hand housing transaction contracts.
In addition, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development actively cooperates with the People’s Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and other departments to carry out special rectification of Internet financial risks, and it is strictly forbidden for development enterprises and intermediaries to provide or assist in providing illegal financial products such as down payment loans; Seriously investigate and deal with real estate development enterprises and intermediaries who engage in real estate financing business by using P2P peer-to-peer lending platform and equity crowdfunding platform without obtaining relevant financial qualifications.
Securities and Futures Commission: The illegal fund-raising business is complicated
Relevant persons of the China Securities Regulatory Commission pointed out yesterday that at present, the situation of illegal fund-raising is still complicated and severe, and major cases are frequent, showing a trend of spreading to new fields and new formats. The risk incidents of illegal fund-raising in the name of original stocks, private equity funds and equity crowdfunding occur from time to time, and the prevention and disposal of illegal fund-raising in the securities and futures industry is still arduous and arduous.
First of all, the networking trend is obvious. Criminals set up online platforms to promote and raise funds through Internet channels, which broke through geographical boundaries, accelerated the spread of risks and increased the difficulty of cracking down on disposal. Secondly, business behavior is complicated. Some illegal institutions also engage in P2P, crowdfunding, small loans, private equity funds and other businesses, with cross-border operations, nested models and intertwined businesses, and their behavior patterns are more complicated and hidden, which increases the difficulty of investigation and identification. At the same time, abuse new concepts and carry out pseudo-innovation. Some companies use investment in high-tech projects to raise funds for Shantou, and some companies use blockchain signs to develop various "virtual assets" for public offering financing.