Recently, the Guangchang County Public Security Bureau of Jiangxi Province cracked a cross-provincial pension fraud case, with the number of people involved reaching as many as over 10,000. The investigating police officers spent four months, traveling day and night across five provinces, freezing 97 accounts involved in the case and freezing a total amount of more than 40 million yuan involved in the case.

　　On December 12, 2023, the Guangchang County Public Security Bureau received a report from a member of the public, saying that his mother, Ms. Wang, had been dragged by a "good sister (Liu)" into online investment in equity purchases, which was very likely fraud.

　　The investigating police officers seized on this clue and unraveled it step by step. Through linkage and cooperation with relevant departments and further analysis and judgment, a fraud gang with clear hierarchy and clear division of labor surfaced.

　　The gang was headed by "Ai Zong" ("Boss Ai"), who convened a group of criminal suspects entrenched in Malaysia and, through communication tools such as live-streaming software and chat groups, fabricated the identity of the head of the big data center of the fictitious world "Zhitian Finance" company, claiming that "buying nominee-held shares only makes money, never loses," and that bringing relatives and friends to participate in the investment could also earn rebates.

　　The gang had a clear internal hierarchy. Under "Ai Zong" were respectively: grand regiment commander, middle regiment commander, small regiment commander, grand group owner, middle group owner, small group owner, grand battalion commander, middle company commander, small squad leader, and so on. Different levels managed different numbers of people, and the rebate amounts also differed. The rebate amount at the regiment commander level was 20% to 30%; at the group owner level it was 5% to 15%.

　　After meticulous investigation, the investigating police officers found that the victims in this case were spread throughout the country. The victims were concentrated in the middle-aged and elderly group aged 50 to 90, and the number of people involved was over 10,000.

　　In order to recover the losses of the public, the Guangchang police, over more than four months, traveled across five provinces and cities—Jixi in Heilongjiang, Yichang in Hubei, Chuzhou in Anhui, Yingkou in Liaoning, and Nantong in Jiangsu—and finally successfully arrested five main criminal suspects headed by Chen (pseudonym), who belonged to the gang in this case (at the regiment commander level).

　　According to the investigating police officers, the fraud gang publicly claimed that its company had been listed in the United States in 2019 and had spent 23 trillion US dollars to buy the Palace Museum, fabricated a policy that its company had obtained support from a national background, and falsely claimed that the company was a "World Bank" established with the state as the backstop (the gang introduced it as the bank of the people of the whole world, but it must be controlled by Chinese people), and said that the purpose of the bank's existence was to make poor people rich.

　　The gang also claimed that the company had now opened a green channel: investors only needed to invest 10,000 yuan, and after the company was listed, they would receive a shopping card worth 10 million yuan; by investing 30,000 yuan, they could get a shopping card worth 100 million yuan. Moreover, this shopping card was a "unlimited shopping card distributed by the state" and could be used for consumption anywhere in the country.

　　After investors made investments, the gang promised that if they introduced others to invest, the introducer could be given a corresponding rebate. Many victims therefore gradually turned into criminal suspects and were ultimately firmly trapped in the scam. After enough people had been attracted, the fraud gang shut down the platform.

　　According to the investigating police officers, this was a hybrid case integrating contact fraud, telecom and online fraud, and pyramid selling. Looking back afterward, although the pretexts of the fraud in this case were clumsy, the entire scam was very tightly organized. The gang established a large number of chat groups, developed downlines in a fission-like manner, and had many hierarchical agents, many participants, and a fast spread speed. At present, the police have frozen most of the funds involved in the case, and the case is under further handling.