On March 25th, The Paper learned from Jiulongpo Branch of Chongqing Public Security Bureau that the criminal investigation detachment of the bureau had recently busted a criminal gang that used buying gold bars as a telecommunication network fraud gang to "launder money", arrested five suspects and seized gold bars worth more than 380,000 yuan on the spot.
The suspect identified the gold bars seized at the scene. Photo courtesy of Jiulongpo police
According to reports, at the beginning of this year, the Criminal Investigation Detachment of Jiulongpo District Public Security Bureau obtained important clues in its work. A man bought a large number of gold bars in the gold shop under his jurisdiction, and immediately exchanged them for cash at a low price in the nearby market. This caught the attention of the police. "At present, the gold price of gold shops exceeds that of 500 yuan per gram, while the recycling price is more than 400 yuan, ‘ Buy high and sell low ’ Obviously illogical. " The police believe that the man is suspected of major money laundering crimes.
Through visiting and arranging the gold shops in the jurisdiction, the police handling the case found that several suspicious men appeared in many well-known gold shops recently — — Rushed to the store, bought a lot of gold with bank cards, and ignored the quality and style of gold, and turned a deaf ear to the introduction of the clerk.
After more than a month’s preliminary investigation by the police, a money laundering criminal gang surfaced. Through monitoring and guarding, the police recently arrested five suspects, including Liu, who was committing money laundering in a gold shop in a large business district in the main city, and seized 900 grams of gold bars with a cash of 5,700 yuan and a value of more than 380,000 yuan.
After the trial, five suspects, including Liu, confessed that from October 2022 to February 2023, they were summoned by fellow countryman Chen Moumou and others, knowing that they were the funds obtained from telecommunication network fraud, and they used bank cards to collect the funds from upstream telecommunication network fraud, and they used credit cards in gold shops to buy gold and then sell it at a low price to get cash, or they sold gold to Zhong Mou and others in exchange for virtual currency for money laundering and then deposited it in a designated account abroad. After investigation, during the more than four months of participating in money laundering crimes, the gang bought more than 7 kilograms of gold through the above methods, involving nearly 3 million yuan.
At present, five suspects, including Liu, have been taken compulsory measures by the public security organs according to law because they are suspected of concealing and concealing the crime, and the rest of the people involved have been chased by the Internet. The public security organs are further investigating a number of upstream telecom network fraud cases in this case.
The police investigating the case said that under the unremitting attack of the public security organs, it is becoming more and more difficult for fraudsters to transfer illegal funds, and gold is expensive and easy to sell, so some people started the idea of using "gold to launder money" and formed a criminal chain in which "errands" buy gold, sell it quickly, and give money to overseas homes through illegal channels.