Hunan Dao County’s “Counterfeit Currency Lake” and the Counterfeit Storm
In mainland China’s counterfeit currency crime map, Daoxian County, Hunan Province is the “main town” of counterfeit currency crime in the country.
A central bank data shows that in recent years, the average annual seizure of counterfeit currency in mainland China is nearly 800 million yuan. The data provided to China Newsweek by the Dao County Political and Legal Committee shows that since 2018, Dao County has seized more than 23.52 million yuan of counterfeit currency, accounting for 80 percent of the total amount of counterfeit currency seized in Hunan province. 1,281 cases of counterfeit currency crimes have been solved nationwide since 2018, with 1,986 suspects arrested, including 107 cases involving Dao County nationals and 174 people, accounting for 8 percent of all cases.
Dao County Shouyan town, the production and trafficking of counterfeit currency was once very “famous”. The town of Shouyan is the largest town in Dao County, and local residents told China Newsweek that Shouyan is known as the “Second People’s Bank of China”, and the counterfeit banknotes used illegally in the market are jokingly referred to as “Shouyan version”. Che Lihua, deputy mayor of Yongzhou City and director of the Public Security Bureau, told China Newsweek that Dao County is one of the few areas in the country where counterfeiting, buying, selling, transporting and possession of counterfeit currency is a “one-stop” crime. “Every link of counterfeit money crime under the criminal law can be found in Dao County, especially in Shouyan Town, where such an illegal crime exists.” Che Lihua said.
Gao Qiang, deputy chief of the Economic Investigation Headquarters of the Hunan Provincial Public Security Department, previously stated publicly that in response to the prominent situation of the proliferation of counterfeit money crimes in Dao County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, the Hunan Provincial Public Security Department issued a “reminder letter on the anti-counterfeit money work in Dao County” to the county party committee and county government, and the Economic Investigation Headquarters of the Public Security Department included Dao County into a category of economic investigation work risk highlighting the county.
In Dao County, the storm against counterfeit money crime suddenly rose. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. Che Lihua confessed that the use of several times or even a dozen times the police force, one is to form a deterrent, the second is to do “to eliminate evil”.
The threshold of “entry” is not high
The special anti-counterfeit printing paper, colored ink, scale, hot stamping powder, screen printing network …… When these tools and materials come together, the situation is “abnormal”.
Since January 2019, Dao County farmer Chen Ping began to buy special printing paper and other supplies, and his “downline” frequent contact, which attracted the attention of the police. The police have been in contact with his underlings, who are also counterfeit money dealers.
The printing of counterfeit currency requires special raw materials, such as special printing paper and colored ink, but these supplies are not controlled items and can be obtained through the Internet and other channels. Dao County police rushed to Guangdong, through the investigation of some raw material manufacturers found that Chen Ping’s group will be counterfeit a huge amount of counterfeit money, the police began a months-long investigation and mapping of Chen Ping counterfeit criminal gang.
After identifying the printing, processing and hiding dens of counterfeit currency and related suspects of the Chen Ping-led counterfeit currency crime gang, four arrest groups of police went to Shouyan Town and Futang Street in Dao County to implement a centralized netting operation. “When we rushed into the house, the printer was still working.” Li Wei said.
Che Lihua introduced the counterfeit money crime in Daoxian County mainly “learn” the Guangdong area, originally mainly from the Guangdong area of the upstream crime chain to buy counterfeit money, and then do secondary processing. With the popularity of printers, some Daoxian people get electronic masters, and began to print their own counterfeit coins.
For the counterfeit currency crime, the two links of manufacturing and trafficking are indispensable, and technology and channels are two of the most important “elements”. Li Wei told China Newsweek that, unlike the “factory-style” mechanism for printing counterfeit coins that was uncovered in Guangdong, the crime of printing counterfeit coins uncovered in Dao County is still based on printer printing. The printing method of manufacturing counterfeit money, with less equipment, simple technology, low cost, in recent years, such crimes continue to spread in the country. Data from the Ministry of Public Security show that since 2014, the number of printing counterfeit money forgery dens destroyed by public security authorities nationwide has risen from dozens to hundreds per year.
Police seized a large batch of colored ink used by counterfeit criminal gangs to print counterfeit coins during clearance operations.
The threshold for printing counterfeit coins is not high. In the Internet, through channels such as QQ groups, you can buy the electronic master copy of the counterfeit currency made using PS technology, and some people even provide “teaching services” to teach counterfeiting techniques. However, mastering the “core technology” of printing counterfeit money is not an easy task.
The Ministry of Public Security anti-counterfeiting laboratory in charge of Dong Yongxian has been interviewed by the media, criminals buy good paper, stamping good security line, layer by layer iterative printing of different colors, after printing for cutting and secondary processing, each counterfeit coins are pressed by machine or manual pressure to form a sense of bump on the counterfeit coins. The process is complicated and small errors can lead to misalignment and ghosting, making it a “waste” ticket, so the technicians are very “valuable” and can use ordinary pigments to mix colors that resemble real coins by feel, and therefore pay amazingly.
The police in Dao County in recent years have uncovered cases of counterfeit money crime, “technicians” are often the core members of the group, and proficient in computer and printing technology. When the “technician” enters the printing site, no longer in contact with the outside world, to find the printing nest has become the key to solving the case.
Li Wei told “China Newsweek” that the criminal gang of counterfeit currency has a clear division of labor, each process, “production is not responsible for processing, processing is not responsible for sales”. The structure of the counterfeit criminal gang is in the shape of a “pyramid”, and the higher up it is, the higher the concealment. At the “tip” of the tower are the ringleaders, who are called “bosses” and firmly control the channels for selling counterfeit currency. The entire process from the manufacture, sale and transportation of counterfeit currency is carefully and meticulously planned by criminal gangs.
The information provided by the political and legal committee of Dao County shows that, from the cases detected in the past two years, the suspects are constantly updating their criminal ways and means. Some have a strong sense of anti-investigation, frequent changes in communication, “separation of people and goods”, “remote control command”, a situation to escape, an opportunity to start another stove, resulting in more difficult to detect and combat.
Li Wei revealed that the local counterfeit criminal gang printed counterfeit money, the technical level is not high, as long as the careful identification can identify the real. “Making very real counterfeit coins means the profit made will be very low.” Li Wei explained. For some locals who have been in contact with counterfeit crimes for a long time, the “business” of making counterfeit coins is much better than making a living outside. In Dao County, the cost of printing a hundred yuan of fake money is three or four yuan, while the wholesale price of fake money is 10 yuan each, which has 6 to 7 yuan of “profit”.
In addition to large amounts of counterfeit money, counterfeit criminal gangs also began to focus on small denominations of counterfeit money, with a view to “thin profit more sales. On February 21 this year, the Dao County public security authorities cracked the Tang Mouyu counterfeit currency case, the seizure of 20 yuan denomination of counterfeit currency amounted to more than 3.64 million yuan. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public.
Cross-regional crackdown challenges
In Dao County, the phenomenon of counterfeit money crime has a long history. In the 1990s, a large number of Hong Kong printing companies moved to the Guangdong area, training a large number of skilled printers locally, and the phenomenon of counterfeit currency began to breed. Dao County is located in southern Hunan, adjacent to the two provinces, known as “the two provinces, shielding the three Hunan”, is the main traffic route to Guangdong, Guangxi. As a large population exporting county, the main destination of Dao County people going out to work is the Guangdong area, some people began to contact the crime of counterfeit money.
In early 2009, the situation of counterfeit money crime in China became serious. The Ministry of Public Security launched a nationwide special operation to combat counterfeit money crimes, code-named “Operation 09”, with Hunan and other 10 provinces and regions as the key areas for remediation. The public security authorities found that the manufacture of counterfeit currency is mainly concentrated in Guangdong and Hunan, with Guangdong Lufeng, Huilai and Hunan Daoxian as the source areas.
“Foreign raw materials procurement, local printing and processing, outflow trafficking use”, this is the characteristics of the counterfeit currency crime in Dao County. A paper published on the website of the Dao County Court points out that the towns of Shouyan and Meihua in Dao County have become the most affected areas by the crime of outflow trafficking of counterfeit currency.
In the past two years, many places such as Huainan in Anhui, Qingdao in Shandong and Shangrao in Jiangxi, have cracked cases of Daoxian nationals roaming to the area to commit counterfeit money crimes. The modus operandi of these counterfeit crimes is not very clever, usually passing through multiple places to deliberately use fake money to shop at the market to cheat the real money.
“Made in place A, sold in place B and used in place C.” Qin Xuejun, director of public security in Dao County, told China Newsweek that counterfeit currency crimes are not easy to combat because of the characteristics of roving operations, mobility and concealment. The time and place of occurrence is extremely irregular, plus it involves multiple provinces, cities and counties, and there is no pattern to follow. In the present-day joint crackdown mechanism is not yet sound, to combat the production and sale of counterfeit currency such cross-regional crime cases, often need to provincial public security organs or even the Ministry of Public Security to coordinate. The case is limited by the manpower to investigate and deal with the case across administrative regions, and the case is difficult to secure and inefficient. Qin Xuejun suggested that the mechanism of mutual investigation and linkage of information from public security organs at all levels should be strengthened in order to meet the challenges of combating cross-regional crimes.
Another problem that causes police “headaches” is the difficulty of combating and handling. According to the 2000 “Supreme People’s Court on the trial of counterfeit currency and other cases of specific application of the law of interpretation”, the crime of selling, buying, transporting and using counterfeit currency is the standard for filing a case is more than 4,000 yuan in total denomination. Qin Xuejun told China Newsweek that the local public security authorities found during the crackdown that the suspects often carried less than the aforementioned amount of counterfeit currency, which could not be filed because the amount involved was below the crime recognition standard, and could only be punished by security.
The local public security authorities have been “targeting” a number of counterfeit money crime dens hiding in Dao County.
In recent years, the public security organs of Daoxian County have been maintaining a strict and high pressure on counterfeit money crime, the local counterfeit money crime has been curbed, but still far from being banned. Che Lihua believes that in order to eradicate counterfeit money crime from the source, the key is to keep up with social governance. The problem of counterfeit money crime in Dao County in fact reflects the embarrassment of the local grassroots governance system.
Dao County has a total area of 2,442 square kilometers, roughly “seven mountains and half water and two fields, half of the roads and manor” of the general pattern, jurisdiction over 27 township fields (streets), 585 administrative villages (communities). At present, the full sense of the community only 10 central city, another 575 village units are still rural, the rural population still accounts for the vast majority of the county’s total population.
A number of local police officers involved in the investigation of counterfeit currency crimes told China Newsweek that the vast majority of suspects in counterfeit currency crimes have a low level of education and a low level of legal awareness, “young people start to travel north and south at a very young age, and social interaction is complex”. Some of the “early entrants” of the local people, relying on the production and trafficking of counterfeit currency “to get rich”, they drive luxury cars, high-end consumption, spending a lot of money. This “demonstration” will naturally make people “red”. The counterfeit money has become a desperate way for some local young people to “make quick money”.
Che Lihua told “China Newsweek” that counterfeit money crimes such as cross-regional crime, mostly by a mouth-to-mouth criminal techniques and derived from a black and gray industry. This kind of phenomenon often has a demonstration effect, “he earned money back can show off rich, then may drive more people to join the black and gray industry.” Che Lihua explained.
Profiteering, greed, coupled with the relative lag of rural grassroots social governance and rule of law construction, making the manufacture and sale of counterfeit currency such crimes are easy to breed and spread like a virus, thus forming a regional crime. The relevant information of the Dao County Court shows that in some villages in Dao County, junior high school is the most common level of education. In remote mountainous areas of rural areas, farmers over 40 years old have high school education of less than 10%, and even illiteracy is not uncommon, simply do not have the basic legal knowledge.
In the rural areas of Dao County, the Shouyan police station, which has the largest number of police officers, has only 9 police officers, but is in charge of 66 administrative villages with a household population of more than 70,000, with each police officer responsible for an average of 7.3 villages. The town’s judicial staff is even smaller, only 3 people, simply can not take into account the guidance of the construction of the rule of law in each village. 4 rural courts, jurisdiction over the county’s 20 towns of first instance civil cases, only 16 staff including judges. The county’s two law firms, four legal services in addition to one in the town of Xianzi feet, all located in the county, and because of the current operating mechanism, lawyers and legal services workers basically not to rural services. Therefore, the construction of the rule of law in rural areas is very weak, coupled with the lack of funds for the construction of the rule of law in rural areas, resulting in a serious overall lag in the construction of the rule of law in rural areas.
Che Lihua believes that a certain type of crime in an area over a period of time is prominent, the responsibility of the local government needs to be landed. To achieve the purpose of source management, the fight is one hand, more important is the grassroots social governance capacity to improve.
Anti-counterfeit currency is included in the “hand project”
The phenomenon of counterfeit money printing was once rampant in Dao County. China Newsweek” in the Daoxian large market, farmers market and other places to visit, a number of vendors told reporters, some years ago Daoxian counterfeit money proliferation, some people often use counterfeit money shopping change way to cheat vendors. Because the amount is not large, the vendors found after receiving counterfeit money can only admit their own bad luck, the local farmers’ markets, rural bazaars have been the “hardest hit”.
In recent years, some of the older counterfeit money crime “old rivals” back to Dao County, counterfeit money crime phenomenon of intergenerational transmission. Li Wei told “China Newsweek”, Dao County in recent years to crack the counterfeit currency cases, the suspects show a “family” characteristics, and a large age span, some suspects or their family members have a history of counterfeit currency crime. Dao County police in the detection of Chen Ping counterfeit money crime gang in the process of selling counterfeit money found that the gang members are mostly family, family and friends, neighbors as a link between members have common interests and trust base, the external strict confidentiality.
It is understood that the dens of counterfeit money gangs often choose to be located in remote, inaccessible villages. Most of the residents of such villages are “people with the same surname”, the village almost rarely have outsiders set foot, and arranged with multiple hidden sentry. Counterfeit money criminal gangs will choose to employ the same village people as a secret sentry, in order to inform the police, to bring trouble in the investigation.
On March 16, a counterfeit currency case led by Dao County Public Security was unified and closed in four places: Guilin, Kunming, Chenzhou and Yongzhou, with a total of over 9.9 million yuan of counterfeit currency seized. In the past five years, the local public security organs in the fight against counterfeit money crime, almost every year there are results. But behind the achievements also reflects the serious situation of counterfeit currency crime in Dao County – the large stock of counterfeit currency production and trafficking, and the outflow of counterfeit currency crime is still high.
Dao County Mayor Li Tianming has publicly stated that the five types of counterfeit currency, telecommunications network fraud, outflow theft and other prominent crimes across the region, “seriously corrupted the social climate of Dao County, seriously affected the external image of Dao County, seriously shaken the foundation of Dao County’s development.” Combat the five types of cross-regional prominent crime, is listed as a local “hand project”.
The Public Security Department of Hunan Province, in response to the prominent situation of the proliferation of counterfeit money crimes in Dao County, issued a “reminder on the anti-counterfeit work in Dao County” to the county party committee and county government, arousing concern. Police sources revealed that if Dao County does not pay attention to combat this type of crime, until the Ministry of Public Security hanging “red and yellow cards” supervision, the situation is passive, so the Hunan Provincial Public Security Bureau on the first step, Dao County issued a reminder. To this end, the Yongzhou Public Security Bureau carried out a special operation codenamed “Shadowless Storm” to combat counterfeit money crime. At the same time for the characteristics of counterfeit money crime in Dao County, the Yongzhou Public Security Bureau to Dao County to send a commando team to focus on combating the production and sale of counterfeit money crime.
A big storm to rectify counterfeit money crime has been whipped up in Dao County. Documents obtained by China News Weekly show that Dao County requires townships and streets to organize township cadres, political and legal cadres, and village cadres to take a carpet-type mapping of villages, villages, and households to screen out the former and suspected perpetrators of counterfeit currency crimes. And require the key personnel of the crime of counterfeit money to establish a control account, clear control responsible person, the implementation of “one-to-one” control. The ex-convicts are provided by the county Public Security Bureau to the township streets. The former criminal’s close relatives, those without proper employment outside, “overnight riches” or income does not match the obvious are listed as key personnel.
Dao County hopes that this three-year remediation storm can achieve the county’s national counterfeit currency crime focus area “off” the goal. Dao County proposed that from 2021 to 2023, the amount of counterfeit money seized in Dao County, based on the average amount seized in the previous five years increased by 30% each year; the number of counterfeit currency cases solved by the national public security organs Dao County personnel, the number of Dao County suspects arrested for counterfeit currency crimes in the number of counterfeit currency cases solved in the country, the number of arrests in the proportion of the end of 2021, from the current 8% to less than 7%; by the end of 2022 to 5 percent or less; and to less than 3 percent by the end of 2023.
“(Some places) always think of taking the wrong path to get rich overnight, a village or a community, in groups are engaged in these gray and black industries.” The vice mayor of Yongzhou City, Public Security Bureau Secretary Che Lihua said frankly that this is harmful to the sustainable development of the local community, hope that through the centralized eradication of action to eradicate the breeding ground for counterfeit money crime in a region, to achieve the purpose of “uprooting”.
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