Court: The Defendant Made up the Facts and Concealed the Truth for the Purpose of Illegal Possession, Constituting the Crime of Fraud

The year of 2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People¡¯s Republic of China and the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, a memorable year for all Chinese people. The banknotes to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC were sold in great numbers during pre-sale, and it was hard to get one note on sale. Some people came up with the idea of using commemorative banknotes as the bait to defraud money.

A few days ago, the Hongkou District People¡¯s Court of Shanghai (hereinafter referred to as the ¡°Shanghai Hongkou Court¡±) heard a fraud case publicly. The defendant Huang lied that he could get a bank¡¯s internal commemorative banknotes and defrauded the victim of more than RMB 20,000 with this excuse. After the trial, the court pronounced the first-instance judgement in court that Huang committed a crime of fraud, was sentenced to eight months imprisonment and fined RMB 2,000 yuan, and should return the illicit money to the victims.

[Case Review]

The victim Zhou and the defendant Huang got acquainted with each other in a WeChat group. Since they have similar hobbies, they occasionally exchange a few words. In January 2019, Huang suddenly sent a private message to Zhou, claiming that he had a younger sister who worked in a bank and could get the commemorative banknotes for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and commemorative coins for the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up. Huang said the number is limited, and he can preorder the notes or coins for Zhou if Zhou ever needed. Since Huang¡¯s description was very reliable, out of trust, Zhou ordered some commemorative coins worth RMB 1,000.

However, after paying the money, Huang stopped contacting Zhou. Realizing that something may get wrong, Zhou chatted with some other friends in the WeChat group, and he was shocked to find that Huang had cheated the money of seven or eight friends with the same excuse, and the total amount swindled by Huang reached more than RMB 20,000. After chatting with each other, they realized that they had been deceived by Huang and respectively went to the local police stations to report the case. In May, Huang was arrested by local police officers at his home.

According to Huang, he came up with the idea of ​​fraud after learning the news on the Internet of the popularity of commemorative coins and commemorative banknotes. Earlier, he got acquainted with a lot of friends in the WeChat group. After reading the news, he lied to many people that he had a way to get internal commemorative coins and banknotes to defraud their money. Now the illicit money has been squandered by him.

[Case Study]

The Shanghai Hongkou Court concluded that the defendant Huang made up the facts and concealed the truth to defraud others of a large amount of money for illegal possession, which constituted a crime of fraud. Considering Huang¡¯s truthful confession to his crime and commitment to make restitution of the illicit money, the court made the above judgment.

[Relevant Laws]

Criminal Law of the People¡¯s Republic of China

Article 266 Whoever swindles public or private money or property, if the amount is relatively large, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the amount is huge, or if there are other serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined; if the amount is especially huge, or if there are other especially serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years or life imprisonment and shall also be fined or be sentenced to confiscation of property, except as otherwise specifically provided in this Law.

Article 67

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A criminal suspect who truthfully confesses to his crime may be given a lighter penalty although there is no voluntary surrender as mentioned in the preceding two paragraphs; and may be given a mitigated penalty if any especially serious consequence is avoided for his truthful confession.

Article 64 All articles of property illegally obtained by the criminal element shall be recovered or he shall be ordered to make restitution or pay compensation for them. The legitimate property of the victims shall be promptly returned. Contraband and articles of the criminal¡¯s own property used for committing the crime shall be confiscated. Articles of confiscated property and fines shall be handed over to the national treasury and shall not be diverted or otherwise disposed of.

(Writer: Yu Yue of Shanghai Hongkou Court)