Guideline targets cybercrime enablers

A new legal document released on Monday reiterated the sustainable and strong crackdown on individuals who assist cybercrimes, particularly in telecom fraud, with targeted measures to address issues involving juveniles.

Under the 16-article guideline, people who organize or exploit minors, college students, the elderly, those living with disabilities and other vulnerable groups can be charged with aiding cybercrimes, which under Chinese Criminal Law would be deemed "serious circumstances" and could result in up to three years of imprisonment and potential fines upon conviction.

The guideline, jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security, emphasized the necessity of imposing severe penalties on those who use minors to aid online crimes, allowing leniency toward underage participants in some circumstances.

The guideline, which took immediate effect, also identifies seven additional scenarios as serious circumstances, including employing deepfake and other artificial intelligence technologies to facilitate cybercrimes and offering cross-border technical support.

"These scenarios listed for harsh punishment are all prominent problems in reality. Clearly addressing them in the guideline will help us crack down on relevant criminal activities more accurately," said Zheng Xiang, deputy head of the ministry's criminal investigation department.

He urged police officers across the country to focus more on minors and college students being exploited to participate in telecom fraud and other cybercrimes. Officers should educate the young offenders on the law and leniently punish them.

At the same time, he required establishing specialized teams to thoroughly investigate the organizers and instigators behind such crimes and impose severe penalties on them, without any leniency.

Wang Lu, deputy chief judge of the SPC's Third Criminal Division, revealed that some criminals, in order to evade the crackdown, often exploit minors or college students with insufficient social experience and weak self-protection abilities to assist in cybercrime.

Data released by the SPC on Monday showed that in cases related to aiding cybercrime, individuals under age 35 constitute over 80 percent of the defendants, with those under 25 representing one-third.

"The criminals were usually found to have lured minors and college students into renting or selling phone cards, bank cards or payment codes, or participating in money laundering, making them 'accomplices' in crimes such as telecom fraud," Wang said.

One of the cases released by Wang showed that from September to November 2022, a Shanghai vocational high school student surnamed Gao persuaded another student surnamed Gu and a minor surnamed Shi to take part in telecom fraud. Under Gao's direction, Gu and Shi rented out three of their bank cards to Gao, who used them as part of a scam. With those cards, Gao raked in a profit of 570,000 yuan ($79,455).

The Shanghai prosecutors eventually showed leniency toward Gu and Shi because they had been involved in the crime for a short period of time, gained little profit and confessed to the offense. Gao, however, was sentenced to eight months in prison with a one-year reprieve and fined 5,000 yuan for aiding telecom fraud, according to Wang Lu.

"These crimes have spawned a host of related criminal activities that pose significant threats to cybersecurity, social stability and the well-being of the public," said Wang Bin, chief judge of the division.

While calling on courts nationwide to implement the guideline to improve judicial efficiency and accuracy, he required them to strengthen supervision if risks and vulnerabilities are detected in financial, telecom and internet companies, as well as regulatory bodies and industrial organizations during case handling.