Investigators dismantle 200 professional criminal gangs, uncovering $4b illegal funds

Economic crime investigation departments across the country filed over 1,500 cases, dismantled more than 200 professional criminal gangs, and uncovered illicit funds totaling nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.27 billion) in an effort to target illegal and quasi-illegal financial activities, officials from the Ministry of Public Security said at a news conference on Thursday.

The ministry and the National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly launched a six-month nationwide operation cracking down on such activities, covering 17 key provinces and municipalities, effectively purifying the country's financial market ecosystem.

Hua Liebing, director of the ministry's economic crime investigation bureau, noted that prominent financial consumption disputes in recent years have fueled the proliferation of illegal intermediary chaos, which has spread rapidly online and evolved into a well-established illegal and quasi-illegal industrial chain. This has severely infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers and disrupted the normal order of the financial market.

Such crimes have become industrialized, with a complete chain covering false advertising, provision of counter-regulation tutorials, standardized script customization, forgery of fake certificates, and negotiation representation services, he said.

He noted that violators are increasingly professionalized, as some lawyers and collection agency professionals, driven by profit, have joined such criminal groups, spawning professional complainants and agents who exploit their knowledge of laws and credit institution complaint rules.

Besides, the criminal methods are growing more covert, with offenders leveraging new technologies and AI-generated tools to evade detection.

Hua emphasized that emerging forms of illegal and quasi-illegal financial activities are expanding rapidly. As industry regulation and criminal crackdowns intensify, such crimes are expected to become more hidden and their modus operandi more sophisticated and variable.

The ministry vowed to strengthen collaboration with financial regulators, maintain regular crackdowns and deterrence, participate in the rectification of illegal financial intermediaries, and contribute to the high-quality development of the financial industry.