"Unemployed? We'll pay your housing provident fund for you, fix your credit report, no collateral needed, fast disbursement." For people who urgently need money but cannot obtain a loan through proper channels in a short time, such loan terms are undoubtedly a windfall from heaven. But once someone falls into the trap, the reality is "a 200,000-yuan loan, with only 30,000 yuan actually received"...

Recently, the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau of Baiyin City, Gansu Province, dismantled a large professional loan fraud gang that swindled bank loans, severing a massive criminal network chain spanning 23 provinces nationwide, arresting 8 criminal suspects and involving more than 35 million yuan.

　　Multiple overdue loans found to be problematic

In January this year, the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment of the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau received a tip-off stating that two people in the Jingtai County jurisdiction had forged false credit certificates to fraudulently obtain bank loans, and that after the loans matured, they still had not repaid despite repeated collection efforts by the bank, raising suspicion of loan fraud.

Upon further investigation, the bank's risk control management department had recently discovered multiple overdue loans totaling over 10 million yuan. Preliminary verification showed that the borrowers had no intention of buying homes at all, and that the home-purchase funds and loan funds had already been transferred to specific accounts, raising suspicion that the borrowers had fraudulently obtained bank loans.

Based on the leads in hand, the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment immediately opened a case and set up a special task force to conduct the investigation. The investigating officers learned that one of the overdue loan clients in the Jingtai jurisdiction was Luo Mou-xia, and decided to start with her by visiting her to understand the situation.

It was learned that Luo Mou-xia, 53, is unemployed with a low level of education. After divorcing, she single-handedly supports her elderly parent and raises her child, living in relatively straitened circumstances. One day in April 2020, Luo Mou-xia's "friend" Yang Mou-rong contacted her, bringing "good news" to her in her difficult life: he said he could help her obtain a large loan, and that she could receive 50% of the loan amount, which would help her cover medical expenses and daily living costs.

Luo Mou-xia was tempted. She then, led by Yang Mou-rong, opened a bank card at a certain bank and printed her personal credit report, handing the credit report and a copy of her ID card to Li Mou-qin. She then flew to Shenzhen with another "borrower," Gao Mou-ai. Under the operation of a local professional packaging gang, she applied for a housing provident fund loan with an applied amount of 217,900 yuan, of which Luo Mou-xia actually received 30,000 yuan.

As for the specific circumstances of Yang Mou-rong and Li Mou-qin, Luo Mou-xia had no knowledge. She had only heard from Yang Mou-rong that this loan need not be repaid, and that even if the bank found out, at worst she would be blacklisted. She did not even know the specific amount of her loan.

It was not until April 2021, when Luo Mou-xia received a call from the bank demanding repayment, that she learned the specific loan amount. But she felt she had "gotten" 30,000 yuan for free, and even after receiving text messages and calls about the overdue loan, she remained indifferent.

Tracing upward from Luo Mou-xia, the investigating officers preliminarily ascertained that in Jingtai County, Li Mou-qin introduced "loan clients" in need to her upstream contacts.

"Through detailed interrogation of Luo Mou-xia, we gradually clarified the general details of the 'housing provident fund' loan fraud, and at the same time examined the suspect's mobile phone to find electronic data related to the case," said Zhou Fu-yue, head of the Economic Crime Investigation Detachment of the Jingtai County Public Security Bureau. Through a large amount of meticulous work, the special task force preliminarily determined the direction of investigation: this was a tightly organized, systematically complex professional loan fraud gang.

　　Professional loan fraud gang emerges

Zhou Fu-yue introduced that the criminal gang had a very clear internal division of labor and a well-established assembly-line workflow. They used shell companies to professionally package "clean-file persons" (also called "pure white files," referring to persons with no records of online lending, bank loans, financial institution loans, credit card applications, etc. on their credit records) who needed loans, and advanced funds to pay 12 months of housing provident fund in a lump sum for the "clean-file persons" to improve their creditworthiness so that they would meet the bank's housing provident fund credit loan conditions. They then, together with the borrowers, manipulated the borrowers' mobile phones in Shenzhen, Guangdong, to conduct online "provident fund credit loan" applications. After the loans were disbursed, the professional packaging gang, professional loan fraud intermediaries, general intermediaries, and loan suspects divided the loan funds proportionally.

After nearly a month of meticulous investigation, analysis, and assessment, the special task force officers conducted investigations and evidence collection centering on the flow of funds involved and personnel relationships, gradually mapping out the organizational structure of a professional loan fraud gang centered on Li Mou as the hub, which used professional intermediaries and professional packaging gangs to give borrowers corporate packaging and recklessly plundered state-owned credit funds.

Investigation revealed that since April 2020, Li Mou, together with Yuan Mou, Zhao Mou, and others, on the one hand used "Moments" and loan intermediary chat groups to conduct extensive false advertising online, broadly seeking "clean-file persons" in need of loans across the country and conducting preliminary credit checks to determine loan targets; on the other hand, through upstream professional intermediaries and professional packaging gangs, they used shell companies in Qingdao, Shandong, to package the identities of the "clean-file persons," and then, together with the borrowers, applied online for "provident fund credit loans" in Shenzhen, Guangdong.

Further analysis and assessment by the police found that the gang, in the same manner, processed "provident fund credit loans" for more than 130 borrowers across 23 provinces nationwide, causing more than 35 million yuan in severe losses to the bank's state-owned credit funds.

　　Mysterious "masterminds" all apprehended

After preliminarily grasping the criminal leads, on February 16 this year, the special task force dispatched officers to Qingdao, Shandong, and Shenzhen, Guangdong, to conduct investigations.

"Through investigation, we found that in Qingdao, Shandong, the gang set up two shell companies. By packaging borrowers as company employees and advancing funds to pay supplementary housing provident fund contributions, they guided the borrowers to Shenzhen, where other members operated to process the loans," the investigating officers said.

In the view of the investigating officers, these borrowers were both victims and perpetrators. Many of them clearly knew they were fraudulently obtaining bank loans, but chose to cooperate for the sake of profit, becoming the lowest level in the chain of interests. The loan fraud gang adopted various covert methods in controlling provident fund deposit channels and transferring illicit funds to evade police investigation, increasing the difficulty of solving the case.

"The gang had extremely strong counter-surveillance awareness; the slightest carelessness would alert them." The investigating officers said that to ensure a precise and hard strike, the special task force, while fully conducting investigation and evidence collection, closely communicated and coordinated with the county public security bureau's legal affairs detachment and the Jingtai County People's Procuratorate, requesting the procuratorate to intervene in advance, clarifying the electronic evidence standards key to convicting in loan-sharking cases, and ensuring that all types of evidence extracted were standardized and valid.

With the preliminary investigation work concluded, the net was immediately cast. In April this year, after nearly three months, the special task force officers successively apprehended all 8 criminal suspects, including Li Mou and Zhao Mou, in Bengbu, Anhui; Changsha, Hunan; Qingdao, Shandong; and Shenzhen, Guangdong. Thus, this major professional bank loan fraud case spanning multiple provinces and cities was successfully solved, and the "debt bearers" and the mysterious "masterminds" behind them were all apprehended.

At present, the persons involved have been subjected to criminal coercive measures by the police in accordance with the law on suspicion of the crime of fraudulently obtaining loans, and the case is under further investigation.