Participate in the USDT running score, be careful of suspected crimes of helping trust and concealment

Recently, USDT has become famous among stablecoins. USDT’s storage function and high liquidity are deeply loved by users, and even retail investors are rushing into the market. However, some people use USDT as a cybercriminal tool to obtain illegal income. Last year, the police in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province detected the first case of "money laundering" using USDT digital currency to score points in the country, which severely cracked down on criminals who used USDT to score points. However, many citizens still rent out their accounts to help others in spite of the law. Transfer money and draw commissions, but do not know that you may be involved in criminal risks such as the crime of helping information network crimes and the crime of concealing criminal proceeds.

This article analyzes the basic case of the case of using USDT running score on the website of the judgment document, summarizes the characteristics of the criminal behavior of USDT running score, and finally elaborates on the criminal risk involved in the USDT running score behavior: the crime of helping information network criminal activities and the crime of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds. Help the public regulate their own behaviour.

The author used "USDT" and "running score" as keywords to search-zce for a total of 4 related cases on the Judgment Documents Network. Broadly speaking, the cases are as follows:

①The defendant joined the "USDT" virtual currency group through the Tudou chat software, and the gang mainly laundered money for overseas online gambling. The main task of the defendant is to be responsible for settling the daily income of money laundering by other gang members, deducting his own income, and giving the remaining money to the gang members (Hu Difeng First Instance Criminal Judgment of the Crime of Helping Information Network Criminal Activities (2021) Ji 0125 Xingchu No. 32 );

Data: 11.3% of the total amount of Ethereum has participated in the pledge of the beacon chain: According to news on September 15, BeaconScan data shows that the total amount of Ethereum pledged on the beacon chain has reached 13.62 million, accounting for 120 million of the total supply of Ethereum 11.3%. [2022/9/15 6:57:54]

②The defendant added a QQ group friend (Chen) for illegal profit, and learned that the USDT running score business needs to pay a deposit first. After paying the deposit, the other party will transfer the money to the bank account provided by him. After entering the money, you will receive the money and use your own account to purchase USDT coins on Huobi.com, and then transfer the purchased USDT coins to the Huobi.com wallet designated by the other party to complete the "acceptance business". The commission is to help pay 3% of the settlement amount. The defendant used a total of 6 bank accounts and 1 Alipay account (all of which are secondary cards) to help provide 14 payment and settlement services online, making a total illegal profit of 30,000 yuan and helping to pay and settle 1,001,500 yuan (Ren Defu Help Information Network First-instance criminal judgment (2021) Gan 0822 Xing Chu No. 32);

③The defendant Wen, together with Zhu (handled in another case), the defendants Guo and Chang, used their mobile phones to use the software "Huobi", "OKEX", "Kucoin" and "Bitcoin" many times to use themselves and multiple The Alipay account opened by another person and the Zhejiang Internet merchant bank card are used as payment and settlement tools to purchase and sell virtual currency. A total of 9,314,436.03 yuan was recorded (income), and a total of 9,314,159.13 yuan was issued (expenditures) (Wen Moumou and Guo Moumou concealed and concealed criminal proceeds, criminal proceeds first-instance criminal judgment (2020) Yu 1628 Xingchu No. 553);

Hord revises the token attribution schedule of private placement and public pre-sale participants, and changes it to airdrop method: According to official news, the encrypted portfolio tracking software Hord announced that it is revising the token attribution schedule of private placement and public pre-sale participants, It will be changed from monthly to bimonthly, and tokens will be airdropped instead of participants manually withdrawing tokens to save Gas costs. The specific schedule is that 20% will be issued 60 days after the Token Generation Event (TGE), 20% will be issued 120 days after the TGE, 20% will be issued 180 days after the TGE, and 10% will be issued 210 days after the TGE. [2021/5/23 22:34:21]

④ The defendant received orders in the "Telegram" chat software to run points, borrowed other people's bank card information, Alipay and Huobi.com accounts to illegally provide funding channels for overseas gambling websites or telecommunications fraud gangs, and then transferred such funds through Huobi.com. Transfer in the form of purchasing USDT (USDT) and get a commission of 1.5% of the transferred funds. The defendant lent and used his own bank card and Alipay account to transfer 799,568 yuan of illegal funds for others in the form of running points, and borrowed other people's bank cards and Alipay accounts to transfer illegal funds for others in the form of running points for 398,441 yuan and 545,021 yuan respectively. Illegally obtained a commission of more than 10,000 yuan (Liu Fengfu's first-instance criminal judgment for helping information network offenders (2020) Henan 0191 Xingchu No. 1128).

Voice | He Yi: Algorand’s Dutch auction is a token distribution model, and participants need to think rationally and analyze it: He Yi, the founder of Binance, said in an article on Weibo that he regards Algorand’s Dutch auction as a token distribution model Participants need to think and analyze rationally and find out the price that suits them, so as to promote the development of the Crypto market in a more rational direction. Whether the Dutch auction will become mainstream is still unknown, but Binance hopes to inject fresh blood into the industry, encourage innovation and development of the Crypto industry, and hope that there may be more good bidding and token distribution methods emerging in the future. ​​​​Dutch auction is an auction in the form of a reduced price, and the first bidder will win the auction. If you shoot first, you will pay a higher cost; if you shoot later, you may be bought by others and return empty-handed, so this is a game of gambling. [2019/6/25]

Combining the facts of the above cases, the criminal behavior of using USDT to score points is summarized, that is, recruiting agents and forming a team through chat software, using members' collection accounts to provide services for receiving, transferring, and laundering funds for overseas online gambling websites and financial investment fraud platforms , And use overseas chat software to escape police crackdown.

Criminal behaviors using USDT benchmarks can be divided into three stages:

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1. Platform building stage: upstream criminals illegally build a payment management background on the Internet, use USDT currency for settlement, and provide payment channel services for overseas gambling websites and other platforms;

2. Promotion and operation stage: Criminals post advertisements in online social groups such as forums, post bars, QQ groups, etc., looking for overseas online gambling, fraud and other criminal gangs that have illegal fund settlement needs, and at the same time attract more people to become score runners;

3. The stage of attracting benchmark participants: After the benchmark participants pay a certain amount of deposit to the platform, they can receive orders on the platform. The USDT recharge code is provided to the gamblers, and the gamblers recharge the equivalent amount of USDT coins to the accounts of the runners through Alipay and bank cards.

21 digital currency exchanges in South Korea voluntarily participated in the inspection: According to Bitcoin.com, in South Korea, 21 digital currency exchanges have expressed their willingness to conduct evaluations. The main purpose of this evaluation is to understand whether these exchanges comply with the self-regulatory requirements set by the Korea Blockchain Association. The list of South Korean digital currency exchanges that have confirmed their voluntary assessments are: Glosfer, Nexcoin, Zeniex, Kairex, Kcx Exchange, Komid, Coinway, Coinzest, Plutus DS, Dexko, Gopax, Okcoin Korea, and Huobi Korea. [2018/2/24]

In layman's terms, participants in the USDT benchmark use their own WeChat or Alipay collection QR codes to collect money for others, and earn commissions from it. But I don't know to make myself involved in criminal risks.

Without prior conspiracy with the upstream criminals, the participants in the running score will be suspected of the crime of helping information network criminal activities and the crime of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds, otherwise they will become accomplices of the upstream crime.

1. Legal provisions on the crime of aiding information network criminal activities and the crime of concealing criminal proceeds

Crime of aiding information cybercrime

The crime is referred to as the "crime of aiding trust", which was written into the "Criminal Code" in 2015. The legislature stipulated that the crime was included in the "crime of disturbing public order", which is intended to combat cybercrime and help form an orderly public order. The crime is stipulated in Article 287 bis of the Criminal Law, "Knowing that others use the information network to commit crimes, providing Internet access, server hosting, network storage, communication transmission and other technical support for their crimes, or providing advertising promotion, payment settlement, etc. If the circumstances are serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall be fined concurrently or solely.”

Crime of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds

The crime is mainly stipulated in the "crime of obstructing public affairs", which is the state's regulation of criminal behavior that affects the handling of cases by public security organs. The crime is stipulated in Article 312 of the "Criminal Law", "Whoever knowingly harbors, transfers, purchases, sells on behalf of others, or uses other methods to cover up or conceal the proceeds of crimes and the proceeds generated by them shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance. , concurrently or solely to a fine; if the circumstances are serious, to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and to a fine.”

2. The connection and difference between the constituent elements of the two crimes

The connection between the two crimes

The crime of aiding information network criminal activities and the crime of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds both have predicate crimes, and both are acts of helping predicate crimes to deal with stolen money and stolen goods. It's just that the predicate crime of aiding information cybercrime activities is generally cybercrime, and the predicate crime of concealing and concealing criminal proceeds is more extensive. In addition, the subjective degree of the two crimes does not require the perpetrator to know the specific type of the predicate crime.

The difference between the two crimes

Comparing the two crimes from the constitutional elements of the crime, there are significant differences between the two crimes in terms of harmful behavior (illegality), object of behavior (illegality), intention (responsibility), and there are also differences in sentencing.

A Harmful Behavior: Aiding information network crimes The criminal act occurs after the predicate criminal act is carried out and before the act is completed, that is, before the predicate crime has obtained the stolen money or stolen goods. The crime of concealing and concealing criminal activities often occurs after the predicate crime has been completed, and the proceeds of the crime are controlled by the predicate criminals. It should be noted that the division of labor of the USDT benchmark participants is different, and the charges that constitute crimes are different objectively. If the score-running participant’s role in the score-running process is to collect stolen money, it meets the elements of the crime of aiding information cybercrime activities; but if the role of the score-running participant in the score-running process is to transfer stolen money , meeting the constituent elements of the crime of concealing and concealing criminal activities.

Object B: The object of the crime of aiding information network crimes is the act of providing payment and settlement services for the predicate crime; the object of the crime of covering up and concealing criminal activities is mainly for the illegal gains of the predicate crime, that is, stolen money and stolen goods.

C on purpose. The crime of aiding information cybercrime activities does not require the perpetrator to know clearly that he is transferring or collecting stolen money subjectively. If you know that you are taking the role of collecting stolen money in the running points activity, it constitutes a crime of helping information network criminal activities; if you know that you are playing the role of transferring stolen money in the running points activity, it constitutes a crime of covering up and concealing criminal proceeds. Here we should pay attention to the misunderstanding of abstract facts in specific cases. For example, when the behavior subjectively knows that he is engaged in the act of collecting stolen money, but actually engaged in the act of transferring stolen money, the perpetrator shall bear the penalty for the crime of helping information network criminal activities.

D sentencing. The crime of helping information network crimes can be sentenced to a maximum of 3 years in prison. There is a difference in sentencing between the two.

Participants in the USDT benchmark activity involved a wide range of groups, and even some college students participated in it. We say that a gentleman loves money and obtains it in a proper way. At any time, do not take shortcuts to make money for quick success and instant benefit, or embark on the road of crime, then it will be too late.

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