Changde cracked down on the "Wanfu Coin" online pyramid scheme in the American Future City

On July 20 , a reporter from Legal Daily learned from the Changde Public Security Bureau of Hunan Province that after careful investigation, the bureau cracked the American Future City "Wanfu Coin" large-scale online pyramid scheme case in one fell swoop, and arrested more than 60 agents and network heads of American Future City in the mainland . At present, Yang, Zhou, Tian and nine others have been approved for arrest by the procuratorate on suspicion of organizing and leading pyramid schemes, and the police have frozen hundreds of millions of yuan in bank funds.

The capture operation was full of twists and turns

On April 12 this year, the Changde Public Security Bureau received a report that Tian, ​​a resident of Wuling District, Changde City , set up studios in Changsha and Changde to sell the virtual currency Wanfu Coin of the American Future City and conduct pyramid selling activities. After receiving the report, the Changde Public Security Bureau quickly arranged police forces to investigate. After nearly half a month of investigation, Dekuai found out the operation mode, organizational structure, and capital flow of the "Wanfu Coin" of the American Future City, and obtained the background data of the "Wanfu Coin" website through further work. The conditions for solving the case are ripe. On April 26 , the investigating police learned that Meng, the person in charge of the American "Future City" in mainland China, would enter Shenzhen from Hong Kong on April 27 to return to his hometown Liaoning to visit his parents. Peng Jin, deputy director of the Changde Public Security Bureau , decisively decided to take action to close the net and quickly dispatched police forces to Shenzhen and Shenyang to arrest the main backbone members. However , on the morning of April 27 , Meng learned from his mother Xing that the public security authorities had checked his account. He had a bad feeling and told his mother that he would not return to China. He asked his parents to take their bank cards and fly to Shenzhen immediately. She would send her assistant Zhou to meet him at the border inspection port. In order to prevent the suspects from escaping, the arresting police quickly adjusted their strategy and set up a net at the Shenzhen Futian Port. At 11 o'clock that night, when Meng's parents met up with Zhou and were about to leave the country, the police who had been waiting for a long time immediately attacked and arrested Xing and Zhou in one fell swoop. At the same time, other groups also carried out arrest operations simultaneously. That night, 6 key members were arrested and other network heads were quickly put online for online pursuit.

Boasting dozens of titles to attract 130,000 MLM members

The public security authorities have initially found that Future City USA was founded by Chinese American Liu and is headquartered in Los Angeles, USA. Since 2014 , the company has established a website and carried out pyramid scheme fraud activities specifically targeting Chinese people in the name of selling virtual digital currency through the Internet. In April 2014 , Liu Ning, Pei, Yan and others carried out online pyramid scheme activities in the name of selling virtual digital currency "Internet gold", and developed hundreds of thousands of members in mainland China; In August 2015 , after the three parted ways due to unequal distribution of benefits, Liu Ning cooperated with Chongqing native Ran Qijun to carry out the pyramid scheme of Future City USA virtual digital currency "Tianhe Points" in mainland China. On March 5 , 2016 , Liu Ning launched the virtual digital currency "Wanfu Coin" pyramid scheme project. Until the public security authorities seized it on April 27 , in less than two months, the pyramid scheme project had attracted more than 130,000 members and crazily collected nearly 2 billion yuan in pyramid scheme funds .

Liu packaged himself carefully to conduct pyramid selling activities. He claimed to be the president of Mega Silver Fund, the president of Global Future City Group, the deputy secretary of state of California, the president of the American International Entrepreneurs Association, the president of the American International Cultural Exchange Foundation, and the special adviser to US Presidents Clinton and Bush, among other 11 titles. He advertised himself on the Internet as a successful American entrepreneur, the chairman of the American listed company "American Future City Co., Ltd.", which has more than 40 listed companies and large real estate projects in the United States and Europe; he has 13 companies in China and is an important participant in China's "Belt and Road" project. He has deep friendships with politicians from all over the world, and boasts on the Internet and public WeChat groups that he has exchanges and photos with politicians from various countries, leaders of the Chinese Party and State, and performing stars. According to the investigation by the public security organs, it is difficult to find the source of the titles boasted by Liu, and it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of his photos with politicians from various countries and celebrities. China's "Belt and Road" project is also fictitious and cannot be verified. The thirteen domestic companies were registered by Liu at the instruction of others. They are "three-no companies" with no office space, no office staff, and no business projects.

In order to conduct pyramid selling activities and obtain high profits, Liu claimed that "Wanfu Coin" was the world's first nationally recognized virtual digital currency issued by Future City Corporation of the United States with the approval of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the China Banking Regulatory Commission. It has been recognized by more than 20 countries, can be traded on the international market, can be withdrawn, and can be used for offline shopping. It is omnipotent and will replace paper money in the market in the future. It has also been recognized by the Ministry of Commerce in China and is about to obtain a direct sales license. However, according to the authoritative global existing digital currency rankings in the field of virtual currency, the reporter found that there was no "Wanfu Coin" and the so-called application for a direct sales license was even more a fantasy. As early as December 2013 , the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks", which clearly stated that Bitcoin does not have the monetary attributes of legal compensation and compulsion, and is not a real currency. In terms of nature, Bitcoin should be a specific virtual commodity that does not have the same legal status as currency and cannot and should not be circulated and used as currency in the market. Based on this, the so-called formal application for a digital currency license in China by the Wanfu Coin project currently has no legal basis.

High profits lure integrated systems to develop members

In order to entice others to join, Liu formulated an extremely tempting bonus system. Member bonuses are divided into static bonuses and dynamic bonuses. As long as you pay 10,000 yuan, you can register as a member. If you don't recruit members, you can just wait for the price of Wanfu Coin to rise and you can get money without doing anything. The annual rate of return is about 3 times, and if the development is good, it may reach 5 to 10 times. This is the static bonus. If members want to make more money, they must recruit members and get differential bonuses, which is the dynamic bonus. To this end, "Wanfu Coin" is divided into three levels and fifteen grades, namely 1-5 stars, 1-5 golds, and 1-5 diamonds, according to the number of members developed. Each level corresponds to a different bonus return. After developing downlines, you can get commissions, and commissions can be obtained layer by layer. The lowest one-star member can get a commission of 10% of the funds paid by downline members. If the number of members developed reaches a certain level, they can be promoted to a higher level and get more commissions; 5- diamond members can get commissions of up to 80% of the funds paid by downline members; if you lead a team to connect with Liu himself, you can start directly from a diamond member. In this way, the higher the level, the greater the difference, and the more members you develop; the larger the team, the more bonus commissions you get. Attracted by the high bonus, Yuan and Peng, the heads of pyramid schemes in mainland China, changed their clubs and directly led their teams to join Liu and join the "Wanfu Coin" project. In order to prevent these gangs from malicious competition and disrupting the market, Liu incorporated these pyramid scheme heads and integrated them into nine domestic systems, with each system developing a minimum of more than 6,000 people and a maximum of more than 30,000 people.

In order to attract more members, Liu held large - scale investment promotion conferences in Bali , Indonesia and Hong Kong on March 8 , March 29 and April 22 , 2016 respectively to promote the pyramid scheme, with thousands of people from China participating.

In order to manage the team, collect and transfer pyramid scheme funds, Liu arranged for his company executive Meng to be his domestic agent and registered 13 shell companies including Shenzhen Poly Investment Fund in Shenzhen, Chongqing, Guiyang, Beijing and other places. The purpose was to obtain the company's public account, gain the trust of members, and collect pyramid scheme funds from members. Meng also entrusted his mother Xing to manage the account funds and contact underground banks to convert the collected RMB into US dollars and then transfer them to the US account of Future City in the United States. Xing successively transferred more than 400 million yuan of funds from her son Meng's account to the United States.

"Making money while lying down" is not reliable

Why would anyone believe such an obviously unreliable thing as "making money while lying down"? The reporter interviewed Zhang, a participant in the "Wanfu Coin". Zhang said that the reason why he invested in "Wanfu Coin" was that he saw Liu's many titles and halos on the Internet, as well as photos with party and state leaders, and believed in his strength; secondly, the high return on investment made people excited; however, what investors don't know is that the investment cannot be realized immediately, and there is a thawing period of up to half a year. Investors will thaw 5% of the investment amount every week starting from one month after the investment date , and all can be thawed after 30 weeks. After thawing, you have to queue up to sell and cash out on the so-called international market, and you can imagine the final result. According to the reporter's investigation, the international market that "Wanfu Coin" claims is actually fictitious and is manipulated by Liu. When the "Wanfu Coin" project was just launched, in order to lure others to invest, Liu set it to "only rise but not fall". Once Liu Ning wanted to stop and run away, he could set it to "only fall but not rise". The ultimate victim was the investor.

Peng Jin, deputy director of Changde Public Security Bureau and head of the "Wanfu Coin" task force, told reporters that the "Wanfu Coin" pyramid scheme in Future City, USA reflects the new characteristics of current pyramid schemes. First, pyramid schemes are carried out under the guise of virtual currency, a new type of financial pyramid scheme that the general public does not understand and is easily deceived. Second, it has changed the traditional model of setting up studios and order centers for pyramid schemes, and instead promoted through the public WeChat account on the Internet, and people can join by scanning the QR code. The superiors and subordinates only communicate through WeChat groups and do not meet offline, which increases the concealment of pyramid schemes. Third, the headquarters are set up overseas, and the organizers hide overseas to issue orders, and the funds are transferred overseas, making it difficult to arrest, recover the stolen money, and eradicate the roots. After the investigation of the "Wanfu Coin" of the American Future City, Liu did not appear in court, so he changed his name and set up a "Global Future Wealth Equity Investment Fund" (referred to as the Wealth Fund) project, promoting that the project had invested in the "Guangxi Laibin Yi Bird Commodity City" and would be listed soon. The background system and members of the "Wanfu Coin" continued to engage in pyramid selling activities. In just over two months, more than 30,000 members were developed in mainland China . Based on the minimum order of 10,000 yuan per order, more than 300 million yuan was collected .

In this regard, Peng Jin warned investors that there are currently one or two hundred types of virtual digital currencies being promoted online, and it is difficult to distinguish the true from the false. Some use virtual digital currencies to raise funds illegally, and some use virtual digital currencies for pyramid schemes. Investors should fill in their entries with caution. The public security organs will severely crack down on criminal activities of using virtual currencies for pyramid schemes in accordance with the law.