Recently, officials from the the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) Law Commission and the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council answered questions from Xinhua News Agency reporters on preventing and cracking down on illegal fund-raising, illegal financial business activities and pyramid schemes.
Q: What are the common types and forms of illegal fund-raising activities? What are the basic characteristics of illegal fund-raising activities?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council replied: Illegal fund-raising activities involve a wide range of contents and various forms of expression. Judging from the current crime situation, it mainly includes creditor's rights, equity, commodity marketing, production and operation, etc. , which is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
(1) Illegal fund-raising in the name of planting, breeding, project development, manor development, eco-environmental investment, etc.
(two) illegal fund-raising in the name of issuing or disguised shares, bonds, lottery tickets, investment funds and other rights certificates or futures trading or pawn;
(3) illegally raising funds by claiming shares or participating in dividends;
(4) Illegal fund-raising through membership cards, membership cards, seat cards, discount cards, consumption cards, etc. ;
(five) illegal fund-raising by means of commodity sales and leaseback, repurchase and transfer, membership development, business joining, and "quick points method";
(6) illegally raising funds by using non-governmental organizations such as "associations" and "social organizations" or underground banks;
(7) illegal fund-raising and repurchase of "virtual" products such as "electronic stores" and "electronic department stores" constructed by modern electronic network technology;
(8) Divide property, real estate and other assets equally, and illegally raise funds by selling the right to dispose of its shares;
(nine) illegal fund-raising in the form of signing a commodity distribution contract;
(10) illegal fund-raising in the form of pyramid schemes or secret series;
(1 1) illegal fund-raising in the form of investment funds through the Internet;
(12) Illegal fund-raising in the form of "electronic gold investment".
Illegal fund-raising activities mainly have the following four basic characteristics: first, they are not approved by the competent authorities according to law; The second is to raise funds from the social unspecified object, that is, the public; The third is to promise to repay the principal and interest to investors in other forms such as currency, physical objects and equity within a certain period of time; The fourth is to cover up the purpose of illegal fund-raising in a legal form.
Q: What harm does illegal fund-raising do to society?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council replied that illegal fund-raising activities are harmful to society. First, the parties involved in illegal fund-raising will suffer economic losses or even lose all their money. The money used for illegal fund-raising may be saved by participants' lifelong thrift or life-saving money, but illegal fund-raisers squander, waste, transfer or illegally occupy these funds, and it is difficult for participants to recover the funds. Second, illegal fund-raising has also seriously interfered with the normal economic and financial order and caused risks. Third, illegal fund-raising can easily lead to social instability, a large number of social security problems, and even social security turmoil in some areas. Since illegal fund-raising is illegal, once losses occur, the parties concerned need to bear them themselves. Therefore, I hope that the public will definitely not participate in illegal fund-raising activities.
Q: What is illegal financial business activities?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council answered: Illegal financial business activities refer to financial activities, including illegal banking, illegal securities business and illegal insurance business activities, without the approval of relevant financial regulatory agencies.
According to the Measures for Banning Illegal Financial Institutions and Illegal Financial Business Activities, illegal banking business activities refer to the following activities that have not been approved by the CBRC, the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange:
(1) illegally absorbing public deposits or absorbing public deposits in disguised form;
(2) illegally raising funds from unspecified social objects in any name without legal approval;
(three) illegal loans, settlement, bill discount, capital lending, trust and investment, financial leasing, financing guarantee, foreign exchange trading;
(4) Other illegal banking activities recognized by the CBRC or the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange according to law.
Illegal securities business activities refer to the following activities without the approval of the China Securities Regulatory Commission:
(1) Securities and futures brokers;
(2) Securities, securities investment funds and futures investment consulting;
(3) Financial advisers related to securities trading and securities investment activities;
(4) Securities underwriting and sponsorship.
(5) Management of securities assets;
(6) Raising and management of securities investment funds.
(seven) other illegal securities business activities identified by the China Securities Regulatory Commission according to law.
Illegal insurance business activities refer to the following activities without the approval of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission:
(1) Insurance and reinsurance;
(2) Insurance agents;
(3) Insurance brokers;
(4) Other illegal insurance business activities recognized by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission according to law.
Illegal fund-raising is a kind of illegal financial business. Although the names of illegal fund-raising are different, its essence is still illegal financial business activities.
Q: What is illegal absorption of public deposits?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council answered: Illegal absorption of public deposits refers to the act of absorbing funds from unspecified social objects without the approval of the state administrative department, issuing deposit certificates and promising to repay the principal and interest within a certain period of time.
Q: How to identify illegal public offering of stocks and securities investment funds and avoid being cheated?
A: The officials of the Legal Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) and the Legal Affairs Office of the State Council replied: Illegal public offering of shares or buying and selling of shares of securities investment funds seriously disrupts the order of the securities market and will cause great economic losses to deceived buyers. In order to maintain the normal order of the securities market and protect the interests of public investors, China's "Company Law", "Securities Law", "Securities Investment Fund Law" and other laws and administrative regulations have made strict provisions on the conditions, approval procedures, issuance methods, information disclosure and so on. According to the Company Law, the Securities Law and the Securities Investment Fund Law, the public offering of shares (including issuing shares to unspecified objects and issuing shares to specific objects with more than 200 people) and the sale of securities investment fund shares must meet the statutory conditions and be approved by the CSRC. Without approval, no unit or individual may publicly issue shares and shares of securities investment funds. The public offering of shares must announce the prospectus and other information, which shall be underwritten by a legally established securities company; The public should buy and trade stocks through legal securities companies. To sell the shares of securities investment funds, information such as prospectus must be announced and sold by fund management companies established according to law as fund managers or commercial banks, securities companies and other institutions recognized by the China Securities Regulatory Commission; Citizens should buy through these legal institutions. Some people and institutions engaged in securities business illegally spread the lie that they are selling the "original shares" of companies to be listed or the shares of securities investment funds, and they can get high returns after buying them through small advertisements, letters, network information, short messages on mobile phones, promotion meetings, lobbying by themselves or hiring people to lobby, so as to trick the public into buying them. For these illegal securities activities, the public must be vigilant, don't be deceived, and avoid property losses.
Q: The stock market boom triggered the popularity of so-called "underground funds". What are the characteristics of "underground fund"?
A: According to the cases investigated by the public security organs and relevant departments, so-called "funds" such as Jinhui Fund, Chase Fund and Goldfinger Fund are all engaged in money-raising activities in the form of funds. Most of them have no fixed address, and mainly engage in underground criminal activities by developing member pyramid schemes. All funds are deposited and transferred. Its outstanding characteristics are: taking high returns as bait, some taking pyramid schemes as means, taking overseas "funds" as cover, and taking the Internet as carrier, which is a new form of illegal and criminal activities.
Q: What are the legal penalties for engaging in illegal fund-raising activities?
The responsible persons of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) Law Committee and the State Council Legislative Affairs Office replied: Those who engage in illegal fund-raising activities will be given administrative penalties such as confiscation of illegal income, fines and banning of illegal financial institutions according to laws and administrative regulations such as the Commercial Bank Law, the Insurance Law, the Securities Investment Fund Law, the Banking Supervision Law, and the Measures for Banning Illegal Financial Institutions and Illegal Financial Business Activities. For example, according to the provisions of China's criminal law, illegal absorption of public deposits or disguised absorption of public deposits, if the circumstances are serious, can be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years, and fined; Issuing stocks without approval, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and shall also be fined; Anyone who illegally raises funds by fraudulent means for the purpose of illegal possession may be sentenced to death, fined or confiscated.
Q: How does the country stipulate social afforestation at present? What is its essential meaning?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council answered: The decision of the State Council Central Committee on accelerating forestry development encourages all social subjects to directly engage in forestry construction according to law by virtue of their own economic strength, especially to encourage afforestation in barren hills and wasteland suitable for forest, speed up the pace of land greening, and improve the ecological situation and people's production and living environment.
In forestry construction activities, business entities must abide by the provisions of relevant laws and regulations such as forestry social financing, advertising and publicity, operate according to law, and consciously accept the supervision of relevant departments such as national forestry and industrial and commercial administration. The state has corresponding management regulations on forest ownership certificate, land use right certificate, planting, deforestation and forest sales.
Q: What is pyramid selling?
The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council answered: According to the MLM Prohibition Ordinance, MLM refers to the behavior that organizers or operators develop personnel, calculate and pay remuneration to the developed personnel based on the number of directly or indirectly developed personnel or their sales performance, or require the developed personnel to obtain the qualification to join on the condition of paying a certain fee, seek illegal interests, disrupt economic order and affect social stability. It mainly includes three forms: "pulling people's heads" pyramid schemes, pyramid schemes that defraud entry fees and pyramid schemes that are paid by teams.
Q: MLM is prohibited by the state, so what are the main hazards of MLM?
A: The person in charge of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council mainly has the following three hazards:
(1) seriously disrupted the order of the market economy. MLM involves a wide range, a large number of people and a large amount of funds, and some of them are accompanied by a large number of illegal acts such as illegal fund-raising, manufacturing and selling fake and shoddy goods, infringing on consumers' rights and interests, deceiving a large number of social human resources, absorbing a large number of social funds, and undermining the healthy and harmonious development of the market economy.
(2) disturbing public order and seriously affecting the normal life order of the masses and the safety of life and property. The illegal activities of pyramid selling have a strong secondary nature, which has led to a large number of criminal cases and cases that disturb social order. According to statistics, in 2006, there were more than 100 violent criminal cases caused by pyramid selling and more than 660 other public security cases. At the same time, the couple turned against each other, the father and son turned against each other, and even the tragedy of family destruction and death occurred from time to time, which caused great harm to many families and shook the foundation of social stability.
(3) endangering national security and political stability. Most of the people cheated to participate in pyramid schemes are urban retired, laid-off or unemployed people, farmers and so on. The situation that students and ethnic minorities are cheated to participate in pyramid schemes has become increasingly prominent. MLM organizers repeatedly brainwashed participants, exercised mental control, incited participants to obstruct and confront law enforcement departments, and from time to time besieged and harmed industrial and commercial and public security law enforcement personnel, with increasingly fierce opposition and constantly triggered mass incidents. MLM not only greatly harms the interests of the masses, but also further intensifies the cooperatives.