Stay Off the Red Line! Fake Broker “Aohui International” Cracked Down!

Source: Fazzaco 2020-06-28

Why was the enviable “promising project” put behind bars within two months?

Recently, Changsha People’s Procuratorate made a final judgment on 12 defendants involved in the “Aohui International” fraud, of which the two leaders surnamed Deng and Qi were sentenced to imprisonment of 12 and 10 years respectively on a charge of fraud and others convicted in accordance with the seriousness of their offense.

Before the police shut down the fake broker, 102 victims reported to police a total loss of about 3.20 million yuan.

Why did these investors “drink the kool-aid” and generously transfer their savings to the forex scammers?

Brief introduction of the case: 2 months, 1078 victims, fraudulent RMB 566.99 million

"Australia International" was born out of a conspiracy.

When talking about learning the ropes of earning money, Deng told Qi that he had engaged in stock transfer and other financial items, and invited Qi to join him by making full use of virtual platforms. The two fraudsters hit it off, and found a specialized financial platform online, “Aohui International”. Deng was in charge of contacting with personnel operating the backstage of the platform and Qi responsible for recruiting people.

Shortly afterwards, an investment platform “Aohui International” that enabled users to trade forex, gold, and bitcoins started to pop up in the advertisement in many WeChat groups. Using “screenshots of high profits”, “Aohui International agents” boasted that investors could “earn dollars on the platform which is open 24 hours a day”, “foresee the market trend by technologically detecting forex platform loopholes”, and “withdraw cash at any time and get a daily return of 30-35 percent for an investment of 100-20,000 dollars”.

In fact, Qi recruited these agents and told them to lure investors with sales pitches designed by him to scam money from investors to the bank account provided by Deng. Besides, specialized persons were assigned to manipulate the prices of the virtual products in the backstage. After sweetening the deal by giving small gains to the victims, the fraudsters illegally took all the principals after investors keep adding funds in the platform.

When the fraudsters were arrested two months later, the police found in the platform’s transaction record that 126 agent accounts were used to scam 5.67 million yuan out of 1078 victims .

Views from lawyers: Ringleaders who organize and lead a criminal group shall be given a punishment according to all the crimes the group has committed.

After the first instance, Deng and Qi appealed, claiming they were not the ringleaders. What are the criteria of defining a criminal as a principal offender or an accomplice?

According to Article 26 of The Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, a criminal group refers to any relatively stable criminal organization which is composed of more than three persons for the purpose of committing a crime jointly. A principal criminal refers to any person who organizes and leads a criminal group in carrying out criminal activities or plays a principal role in a joint crime.

Article 27 stipulates that an accomplice refers to any person who plays a secondary or auxiliary role in a joint crime.

In this case, Deng bought a fake investment platform, provided the bank card, and recruited persons to manipulate the platform and withdraw money. He played the role of an organizer, schemer, and commander, thus being deemed as a principal offender.

Qi organized and led the criminal group, recruited other people to take charge of the criminal activity, which constitutes the principal offence.

Article 26 also stipulates that a ringleader who organizes and leads a criminal group shall be given a punishment according to all the crimes the group has committed.

Reflection: Be cautious when investing on an unregulated online platform

The “Aohui International” forex scam is really hair-raising: On the one hand, 1078 victims lost 5.67 million yuan within only two months. If the police failed to crack down on the fraud, there would be the devil to pay. On the other hand, the fraud group was not a group of sheep without shepherd, because the fraudsters were organized and well-planned.

The huge amount of the scammed money can be attributed to increasing wealth of people. With extra money and facing obvious inflation, many people want to find out a way to “let money beget money”. The hot money, which was directed to the real estate market where government control and regulations were relax and A-share market which used to be bullish in the past, now flows into the forex market, giving opportunities to the cunning criminals to take advantage of.

FX110 followers must notice that although the crime is elaborately planned, the tricks are very common: lure investors with high returns, and win investors’ trust by ensuring profits at the beginning, which is not rocket science. As long as investors can keep rational and refrain from the sales pitches of “high return”, they will outsmart the scammers.

One thing should be noted: cyberspace and telecommunication sector have already become a breeding ground for criminals. In social platforms only accessible to Internet such as WeChat, it is difficult to 100% confirm a person’s authentic identity, even with the help of camera and after consulting the Internet. You can’t be too careful with investment on financial products.

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Stay Off the Red Line! Fake Broker “Aohui International” Cracked Down!

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