Taking stock of the top five criminal crimes in 2023. Which ones are related to the currency circle?

Author: Lawyer Liu Zhengyao

1. Introduction

Recently, the Supreme People's Procuratorate released the "White Paper on Criminal Prosecution (2023)" on its official public account, which summarizes the national criminal prosecution work in 2023. It is mentioned that in 2023, the national procuratorial organs accepted and reviewed and arrested a total of 1,209,052 criminal suspects of various types, and approved the arrest of 726,000 people after review; they accepted and reviewed and prosecuted 2,511,263 criminal suspects of various types, and decided to prosecute 1.688 million people after review; compared with previous years All are upward trends.

According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate:

Review of arrestsTheft< /strong>, Fraud, crime of assisting information network criminal activities (hereinafter referred to as "Crime of Helping Trust"), crime of concealing and concealing criminal proceeds and proceeds of crime (hereinafter referred to as " "Crimes of concealment"), crimes of opening casinos accounted for 48.4% in total;

Review In the prosecution case, Dangerous Driving, Theft, Confidence, Concealment, Fraud crimes accounted for 53.7% in total.

That is to say, for the crime of dangerous driving, some public security organs directly take weak coercive measures such as bail pending trial; while for the crime of fraud, the vast majority of suspects are Transfer to the procuratorate for review and arrest. In terms of quantity, the crime of dangerous driving is unparalleled, "far ahead" in the first place.

We will review the first five crimes prosecuted by the procuratorate: dangerous driving, theft, trusting, concealment, and fraud. The fifth person arrested (also a crime that is most common in the currency circle) was charged with opening a casino for a big data analysis.

Image source: Supreme People's Procuratorate official account

2. Crime Analysis

(1) Crime of Dangerous Driving

Through the search tool alpha, we found that the characteristics of driving crimes are as follows:

Throughout 2023, 43,439 courts made judgments on dangerous driving crimes and made them available online. Compared with normal data, it is definitely less. The reason behind this is that the Internet rate of judicial documents in criminal cases is currently low.

From a geographical distribution perspective, Henan, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia and other places have a larger number. The most common factor in dangerous driving offenses is drunk driving. From this, we can also see that although the country has not relaxed its control and crackdown on drunk driving for more than ten years, and even "drinking, don't drive, driving and don't drink" has become a mantra of frequent drinkers, there are still a large number of people trying the law. This also requires us to re-understand the relevant concepts in criminology. Crime is a social phenomenon, and it is impossible to say that this phenomenon will be exterminated by the introduction of certain regulations. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the principle of "killing someone for a life" that everyone knows, including children, but there are still many people who are willing to "cut themselves off" and still violate the provisions of the criminal law.

(2) Theft

2023 National Courts There are a total of 14,256 documents that convict Internet thefts. In reality, it is certainly far more than this number (multiplying by 10 is not an exaggeration). According to the public data, the time distribution shows an upward trend month by month, and in terms of geographical distribution, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Henan rank among the "top three".

Through the search, Liu Lu found that 4 of the theft crimes were related to Bitcoin. However, upon closer inspection, it was not because the parties stole Bitcoins that led to the crime. What is interesting is that one verdict was because the parties stole electricity for mining. Convicted of theft.

However, in reality, part of the large number of inquiries our team receives every week is that their virtual currency has been stolen; through our services, some The person involved did successfully file a case with the police. As the market value of Bitcoin rises, cases of virtual currency theft will definitely continue to increase in the future. Liu Lu also reminds all friends to choose a reliable wallet to store their virtual currency.

(3) Crime of Helping and Trusting

Crime of Helping and Trusting It has been widely used by judicial authorities since 2018, almost simultaneously with the "Card Breaking Operation", because the threshold for conviction of this crime is low (corresponding to the difficulty of proving the crime by judicial authorities), and the maximum penalty is only 3 years. In this sense, it also "encourages" lawyers as defenders not to defend too hard - anyway, it is difficult to achieve a breakthrough defense result, such as acquittal or reduced punishment. Of course, in reality, there are still many defenders who do their best.

From the data analysis, there are only 10,128 judgments published online by the court in 2023 for the crime of aid and trust. This is completely out of touch with reality. The main reasons are the same as above. , or is it that the enthusiasm of courts to proactively publish judgment documents is no longer as good as before; from a geographical point of view, courts in Shanghai, Hunan, and Henan have published the most judgments.

The relationship between the crime of trust and the currency circle mainly involves OTC transactions on U, fleets that use virtual currencies to run scores, etc. This is also what Liu Lu has been calling on for newcomers in the currency circle not to do it for trivial reasons. Lier foolishly lent his bank card, phone card, ID card and other information to others for use, or helped others register or transfer virtual currency wallets or exchange accounts. Once stolen money and dirty money are involved, they will basically be given a letter of trust.

(4) Crime of concealment

Crime of concealment It can be understood as an "upgraded" version of the crime of aiding and trusting. First, its burden of proof is a bit stricter than that of the crime of aiding and trusting. Second, its maximum penalty is also significantly higher than that of the crime of aiding and trusting. The crime of concealment has been relatively stable among the more than 480 criminal law crimes, and there has even been a slight downward trend in the past two years (only more than 6,000 cases were announced by the court in 2023). However, in the context of the "Card Breaking Operation", Its size will not be too small. After all, it can rank fourth in the number of charges prosecuted by the national procuratorial organs. "The strength cannot be underestimated."

The relationship between the crime of concealment and the currency circle is actually not much different from the crime of trust. The difference is that in addition to providing payment and settlement assistance for other crimes, the crime of concealment also provides assistance such as transfers, face-swiping cash withdrawals, and on-site cash withdrawals.

(5) Crime of Fraud

The crime of fraud is property In the field of crime, it is considered a felony. According to current standards, once the amount of fraud exceeds 500,000, you will be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Especially in the currency circle, projects worth millions and millions seem to be everywhere. Once it is recognized as fraud by the judicial authorities, The consequences are naturally difficult to be optimistic about.

Judging from the data, courts across the country announced a total of 4,696 online fraud cases in 2023, which is certainly far less than the actual cases. Geographically, Shanghai, Henan, and Liaoning rank among the top three.

(6) The crime of opening a casino

Although the crime of opening a casino is not among the top five crimes transferred to the court for prosecution by the procuratorate, But it is indeed among the top five crimes transferred by the public security organs to the procuratorate for approval of arrest. The traditional offline chess and card rooms, ranging from small ones to the Grand Lisboa, are definitely old-time; even online casinos in web2, no matter how many "beautiful dealers, online card dealing" are beginning to be gradually replaced by web3 Covered by the halo, especially the continuous strengthening of public consensus on virtual currency, online gambling through virtual currency seems to be a new trend of the times. But a crime is a crime. Once the parties are involved in judicial and criminal prosecution, it is difficult to essentially avoid legal risks even by using virtual currency, especially when it comes to casinos where the users are mainland Chinese or where the victim is a Chinese citizen. Casinos that launder money are really likely to be punished even if they are far away.

According to the data retrieved by Liu Lu, only 2,839 national court judgments on fraud crimes were published online in 2023, and they were geographically concentrated in Shanghai, Henan, Hubei and other places.

3. Conclusion

"If people in the world are not sick, why not put medicine on the shelf to make dust" is the wish of a good doctor , "A world without thieves" is the wish of the great director. Believing that "the world is innocent" is the sincere wish of legal workers, including lawyers and judicial personnel. Even Liu Lu can make nonsense of "I hope there will be no crime in the world." What a pity the prison windows are rusty.” However, judging from the data of the Supreme People's Procuratorate in 2023, it is difficult to realize this wish. On the contrary, the workload of the Public Security Bureau and the Procuratorate in recent years has been very heavy. As a criminal lawyer, Lawyer Liu hopes that every case can be handled fairly and justly. Even if each client is guilty, he should be held accountable within the track prescribed by the law. This is also the meaning of the existence of lawyers. To a certain extent, it can prevent justice The agency handled the wrong case.

Another point I want to mention is that according to the data retrieved by Liu Lu, Shanghai and Henan are among the "top" for several crimes. It happens that these two places have Something to do with me – now or in the past. This cannot prove anything except that the level of judicial openness and transparency in these two places is better.