In practice, some individuals or units do not have the qualification to raise funds, but publish information claiming that an investment has a high return to attract investors to invest in funds, but then abscond with the money or transfer the funds afterwards. This kind of behavior is illegal fund-raising, which has caused huge losses to investors and is an illegal act. What are the legal responsibilities for illegal fund-raising?
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1. What are the legal responsibilities for illegal fund-raising?
For those who engage in illegal fund-raising activities, in addition to administrative penalties such as confiscation of illegal income, fines and banning of illegal financial institutions and illegal financial business activities in accordance with the provisions of laws and administrative regulations, those who constitute crimes shall be investigated for criminal responsibility according to law. The crime of illegal fund-raising stipulated in the Criminal Law mainly involves the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits, the crime of fund-raising fraud, and the crime of issuing stocks, companies and corporate bonds without authorization.
Second, what are the means of illegal fund-raising?
(1) promises a high return and fabricates the myth of "pie falling from the sky" and "becoming rich overnight". Lure by profiteering is the only way for all fraudsters to deceive the masses. In order to attract more people, criminals often promise investors to give high returns in the form of rewards and points rebates. In order to defraud more people to participate in fund-raising, illegal fund-raisers began by paying the principal and interest of the early investors in full and on time, then robbing Peter to pay Paul, using the money of the later fund-raisers to pay the previous principal and interest, and after reaching a certain scale, they secretly transferred the funds and fled with the money.
(2) fabricating false projects or concluding trap contracts to deceive the masses into the quagmire step by step. The lawless elements defrauded the masses of funds in the name of planting cactus, spirulina, aloe, pitaya and cordyceps sinensis, breeding ants, black guinea pigs, sika deer and recycling poultry; Some attract public deposits in the name of developing so-called high-tech products; Some fabricate false projects such as afforestation and fund-raising to build houses to defraud the masses of "investing in shares"; Some promise high fixed income and absorb public deposits by means of shops returning rents.
(3) Confuse the concept of investment and financial management, and let the masses lose their judgment before the dazzling new terms. Some criminals use new terms such as electronic gold, investment funds and online speculation to confuse the masses and pretend to be new investment tools or financial products; Some use monopoly, agency, franchise chain, consumption value-added rebate, e-commerce and other new business methods to deceive the people to invest.
(4) window dressing, using legal coat or celebrity effect to cheat the trust of the masses. In order to put a legal cloak on criminal activities, criminals often set up companies, go through complete business licenses, tax registration and other procedures to cover up their illegal purposes, without actually operating or investing in projects. These companies increase publicity by renting office space in luxury office buildings and hiring celebrities to advertise, so as to cheat the people's trust.
(5) Using the Internet to commit crimes and evade attacks through virtual space. Criminals rent overseas servers to set up websites or set up them in different places, and generally use code names or screen names to develop people's heads. Some also spread false information through websites, blogs, forums and other online platforms and instant messaging tools such as QQ and MSN to trick the masses into being fooled. Once it is checked, it will shut down the website quickly and abscond with the money in the name of offline not operating according to the rules. Before absconding, the so-called notice was issued, asking offline personnel to remember their performance and promise to return the rebate in the future, so as to stabilize the deceived people.
(6) Use mental, personal coercion or family deception to continuously expand the victim groups. Many illegal fund-raising participants are persuaded by relatives and friends with low risk and high return. Criminals often use relatives, friends, fellow villagers and other relationships to lure them with high interest rates and illegally obtain funds. Under the mental brainwashing or physical compulsion of MLM organizations, some MLM personnel who have joined in order to complete or increase their own achievements do not hesitate to use their family ties and geographical relations to attract relatives, friends, classmates or neighbors to join, and some even spare their parents, spouses and children, resulting in family ties turning against each other and leading to human tragedies.
If the amount of illegal fund-raising is small, or if the fund-raising is used for normal production and operation, it does not constitute a crime, but the illegal income of the illegal fund-raising actor will be confiscated. However, if the amount of illegal fund-raising reaches the filing standard, it will constitute an illegal fund-raising crime, and the perpetrator should bear criminal responsibility.
legal ground
Article 3 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Criminal Cases of Illegal Fund-raising.
Illegal absorption or disguised absorption of public deposits, in any of the following circumstances, shall be investigated for criminal responsibility according to law:
(a) illegal or disguised absorption of public deposits in the amount of more than10 million yuan;
(2) Illegal absorption or disguised absorption of more than 150 public deposit objects;
(3) Illegal absorption or disguised absorption of public deposits, resulting in direct economic losses of more than 500,000 yuan to depositors.
Whoever illegally absorbs or disguises public deposits in an amount of more than 500,000 yuan or causes direct economic losses to depositors in an amount of more than 250,000 yuan, and has one of the following circumstances, shall be investigated for criminal responsibility according to law:
(1) Having been criminally investigated for illegal fund-raising;
(2) Having received administrative punishment for illegal fund-raising within two years;
(3) Causing adverse social impact or other serious consequences.
Article 176 Crime of illegally absorbing public deposits Whoever illegally absorbs public deposits or absorbs public deposits in disguised form, thus disrupting the financial order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined; If the amount is huge or there are other serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years and shall also be fined; If the amount is especially huge or there are other especially serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years and fined.
If a unit commits the crime mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it shall be fined, and the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Whoever commits the acts mentioned in the preceding two paragraphs and actively returns stolen goods and compensation before initiating public prosecution to reduce the occurrence of damage results may be given a lighter or mitigated punishment.