Editor’s note: Recently, Kaijiang County Public Security Bureau tracked down an extra-large “5.6” internet fraud pyramid scheme. It is the Influencer Family Internet MLM fraud investigation case. The amount involved is over 90 million RMB, and the number of participants exceeds 1 million.
In May 2019, the Kaijiang County Public Security Bureau monitored a shopping platform. It was Influencer Family formed a hierarchical relationship among VIP members by seducing new consumer rebates, carried out team compensation according to the membership level and the number of people. Thus, the Influencer Family was suspected of organizing and leading pyramidal crimes. The Economic Investigation Brigade of Kaijiang County Public Security Bureau filed a case on May 6, 2019.
And then, under the guidance of the Economic Investigation Team of the Provincial Department, a leading group was set up promptly. Xu Dashan, executive deputy director of Dazhou Public Security Bureau, served as the head of the leading team. Zhou Zhongping, director of Kaijiang County Public Security Bureau, served as the deputy. Meanwhile, more than 30 elite police force, including the network security, intelligence, criminal investigation, and police station, formed a special work team to carry out the project entirely. On July 18, with the cooperation of the Hefei police in Anhui Province, the task force launched a unified network-receiving operation in Hefei. Up to now, a total of 12 criminal suspects have been detained, three are on bail pending trials, two vehicles involved in the case, 31 mobile phones, 18 computers, 2 hard disks, 6 pen drives, 85 bank cards, and more than 6.3 million RMB frozen funds.
After investigation, the police officers knew the suspect Wang and others set up the “Influencer Family” e-commerce platform, selling “Net Red Family” fullerene and other products on the Internet. They required participants to purchase the “Influencer Family Fullerene Liquid” at least 39 RMB to obtain the qualifications for joining. And all the participants formed a hierarchy in a specific order. Besides, the number of people in development was used as a reward and rebate directly or indirectly. What’s more, the Influencer Family exaggerated business results and disrupted economic order with false propaganda, such as “the lowest threshold in history,” “win the Nobel Prize,” “all products insured 10 million,” “10 years younger” and so on. Until now, the number of registered accounts has exceeded one million, and members are nationwide. The membership grade is up to 223. From May 2018 to July 2019, the Influencer Family firm has a total income of more than 90 million RMB and a profit of tens of millions RMB. At present, the police are further investigating.
Case Assistance Service provided by SalvationDATA
During the investigation, recommended by Dazhou Public Security Bureau, the SalvationDATA Advanced Service Center responded to the customer at once. After communicating with the investigators, SalvationDATA fully assists the case investigation.
As case assistance, our forensic engineer used mobile forensic tool SPF Pro and computer forensic tool DRS to extract and recover the data of 57 samples of storage media, including mobile phones, computers, hard disks, and flash drives.
In the assistance, SalvationDATA has helped to extract 1.4TB useful data and filter the data related to the case. They obtained vital information such as “MLM, fraud, false propaganda, brainwashing” from chat records and courseware, providing clues for case detection, and assisting the case to be fully detected.
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