[Beijing Guozun Law Firm] Procedures by Which the Public Security Bureau Arrests Fraud Suspects

When handling fraud cases, the procedures by which the public security organ arrests fraud suspects usually strictly follow the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law, but in practice special attention must be paid to the impact brought by standards for amount determination and regional differences. For example, in a false wealth management platform fraud case in a certain eastern city in 2022, the total amount involved in the case reached RMB 1.2 million, and there were more than 50 victims. After receiving concentrated reports, the public security bureau initiated the case-filing and investigation procedure within 24 hours, quickly froze the accounts involved in the case, and took criminal detention measures against 3 principal offenders. The entire investigation stage focused on the examination of electronic evidence, tracing the flow of funds, and questioning witnesses, and took about three months to complete the fixing of evidence.

According to Article 1 of the judicial interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the amount tiers for the crime of fraud are basically uniform nationwide: RMB 3,000 to RMB 10,000 constitutes a “relatively large amount,” RMB 30,000 to RMB 100,000 constitutes a “huge amount,” and more than RMB 500,000 constitutes an “especially huge amount.” However, each province may adjust the threshold in light of actual circumstances. For example, Guangdong has raised the standard for a “relatively large amount” to RMB 6,000, while Gansu still maintains RMB 3,000. In the author’s view, although this differentiated design reflects flexibility, it may cause the phenomenon of different judgments in similar cases. It is recommended that when handling cases, lawyers should first search the judicial documents of the place where the defendant is located.

The sentencing rules in Article 266 of the Criminal Law are very clear: where the amount is relatively large, the sentence is imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; where the amount is huge or the circumstances are serious, the sentence is imprisonment of three to ten years; where the amount is especially huge or the circumstances are especially vile, the sentence may be more than ten years of imprisonment or even life imprisonment. In the above-mentioned cross-provincial fraud case involving RMB 1.2 million, because technical means were used to conceal the flow of funds and compensation was refused, the trial court ultimately sentenced the defendant to fourteen years of fixed-term imprisonment and imposed a fine of RMB 800,000. This shows that when sentencing, judicial organs not only consider the size of the amount, but also attach importance to social harmfulness and the manifestation of repentance.

From a practical perspective, in the procedures by which the public security organ arrests fraud suspects, particular importance should be attached to the standardization of evidence collection in the initial investigation stage — including but not limited to extraction of electronic data, appraisal of fund flow records, and cross-verification of victim statements. The author suggests that defenders should focus on examining the completeness of synchronized audio and video recordings of interrogation transcripts, and whether procedures for cross-regional evidence collection are compliant. For example, in many recent virtual currency fraud cases, because there were procedural defects in the extraction of data from some overseas servers, key evidence was ultimately excluded. Finally, a question worth considering is: in the face of increasingly rampant cross-border telecom fraud, how can difficulties in evidence collection and the unification of sentencing standards be resolved through international judicial cooperation?