The 2024 Government Work Report states that we must safeguard national security and social stability, improve public safety governance, crack down on all types of illegal and criminal activities in accordance with the law, and build a China of a higher level of safety and security.

　　Fraud schemes involving the "unfreezing of national assets" have evolved from word-of-mouth schemes in the past to crimes carried out today via the internet, with constantly renewed tactics that have caused large numbers of people to be duped. In early 2023, police in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, cracked a typical case of fraud involving the unfreezing of national assets.

　　Project investment? Pyramid scheme fraud!

　　In 2023 in Zhangzhou, Fujian, 68-year-old Lao Lin was working as a security guard in a residential community. One day, a friend recommended an investment project to him.

　　The friend explained that the project was called "Glorious China" and involved investing in a digital currency supported by the state and issued in limited quantities. It was not only safe, but for just 1,000 yuan per unit, investors were guaranteed to earn at least 50,000 yuan, which greatly excited Lao Lin.

　　Lao Lin found that many elderly people around him had also invested in the project. So he joined the "Glorious China" project WeChat group, bought one unit for each of his five family members, and recommended the project to other friends.

　　However, half a year later, Lao Lin received no news of returns. Instead, he learned that the ** round of the "Glorious China" project had ended, and that he and the others could only wait for a reinvestment project. The group also said that this time, a single unit required an investment of 5,000 yuan, and the corresponding payout would be as high as 500,000 yuan.

　　This excited Lao Lin again, and he invested an additional 5,000 yuan. Three months later, Lao Lin was notified that he could collect his money, but each unit still required a 100-yuan activation fee. To avoid losing his previous investment, Lao Lin paid another 500 yuan in activation fees. By this point, Lao Lin had invested a total of more than 10,000 yuan in the "Glorious China" project.

　　However, Lao Lin's son felt something was very wrong and went to the police station to report it. But when the police questioned him in detail about the matter, Lao Lin was unwilling to disclose much about his investment activities. He later said that someone in the WeChat group had told him that if public security organs asked him about the investment project, it was a test of his confidentiality regarding the project and his loyalty to the state.

　　Hearing this, the police sensed that something was wrong and invited Lao Lin to the public security bureau. After patient persuasion by the officers, Lao Lin produced several cards. He said he had received these cards two or three days after investing, and that they were proof of his investment in the digital currency. Once the digital currency went into operation, each card could be exchanged for 50,000 yuan.

　　The cards all read "Chairman's Targeted Poverty Alleviation Five Elements Digital Savings Card" and bore a person's portrait. Lao Lin told the police that this investment project was led by the person on the cards.

　　This person is Zhang Jian, who is currently serving a sentence in Chaohu, Anhui Province, for his involvement in a pyramid scheme worth more than a billion yuan. However, Lao Lin believed that Zhang Jian was not in prison. This was because Zhang Jian had sent voice messages in their WeChat group claiming that he had been placed under protection for participating in a "national secret project." This made Lao Lin and the others in the group firmly believe in the "Glorious China" investment project.

　　Layers of transfers, amassing over 100 million yuan!

　　After learning about Lao Lin's situation, the police preliminarily determined that this was a case of fraud involving the unfreezing of national assets that combined rebates, pyramid schemes, and fraud. Such cases generally exploit major national policies and fabricate investment projects to swindle money and amass wealth.

　　In February 2023, after sorting through the relevant leads, the police found that the group members' investment funds all converged in the account of a woman surnamed Jiang. Jiang then transferred the collected funds to a man surnamed Guo. After receiving the money, Guo transferred it again in round-sum amounts to a person surnamed Jia.

　　The police therefore analyzed that this was a criminal gang led by Jia that used a pyramid scheme to commit fraud. The police preliminarily estimated that the gang had more than 300 core agents, with agents at each level profiting by taking a 20% cut per unit. In addition, to motivate the agents, the gang set up an incentive mechanism. For teams that guided members to invest more than 1 million yuan, the agent himself could receive a bonus of 140,000 yuan.

　　Moreover, while further investigating the gang's organizational structure, the police started from a special note and discovered the hidden mastermind behind Jia, a man named Xing Mouzhong. According to statistics, Jia transferred more than 100 million yuan to Xing Mouzhong in succession.

　Swift action, criminals apprehended!

　　In May 2023, the Zhangzhou police organized forces and traveled across the country to carry out arrest operations against the gang's core members. In Guangxi, the investigating officers arrested Guo and found evidence at his home, including the digital currency cards used by Lao Lin and account books. During the same period, 17 core members of the fraud group, including Jia and Jiang, were arrested.

　　After being brought to justice, Jia admitted that she had served as the "finance" officer in the "Glorious China" project, responsible for pooling the money from downline members and transferring it to her superior, Xing Mouzhong. She had added special notes to her transfers to Xing Mouzhong precisely to evade investigation and crackdown by the public security organs.

　　According to preliminary statistics from the public security organs, this gang developed hundreds of agents at various levels, more than 10,000 people were defrauded, 29 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions were involved, and more than 200 million yuan was defrauded. From July to November 2023, the Zhangzhou police organized a second centralized arrest operation, during which a total of 178 criminal suspects were apprehended. This time, the gang leader Xing Mouzhong was also arrested in Guangxi.

　　Xing Mouzhong confessed that he had impersonated Zhang Jian in the WeChat group. He said that before Zhang Jian was imprisoned, he had many members across the country, and in order to better win over these people who had previously participated in pyramid scheme work, he used Zhang Jian's identity to encourage everyone to become core members of the gang.

　　During the investigation, the police found that the victims of such fraud cases were mainly elderly people. Many elderly people had their savings of many years wiped out in an instant and suffered severe physical and mental blows. In this case, after learning the truth about the scam, the victim Lao Lin was also deeply mired in regret and guilt for having implicated his friends.

　　Fraud crimes involving the unfreezing of national assets seriously infringe on the property safety of the people, damage the credibility of the government, disrupt the social and economic order, and often cause egregious social impact. In the past year of 2023, public security organs nationwide dismantled more than 180 criminal gangs, with involved amounts of 1.5 billion yuan, and achieved remarkable results in the crackdown and rectification.