Cooperating with foreign “big manufacturers”, the company is strong, and has a good reputation in early small transactions…seemingly gorgeous promises continue to paralyze the victimized business owners, but behind them are Ni Lizhong, Song Guozhu and their A trap carefully laid by overseas “black hands”. From August 2015 to the incident, Ni and Song used this contract fraud scheme to “fall into” 25 textile companies, causing the companies to lose hundreds of millions of yuan, and some companies even went bankrupt under the weight of huge losses. Zhang, the “big boss” behind the scenes who directs them from overseas, was a famous “textile enterprise killer” in the industry many years ago.
A few days ago, this huge series of contract fraud cases came to an end. The Shaoxing City Procuratorate in Zhejiang Province filed a public prosecution. The defendants Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu were sentenced to 17 years in prison and 10 years in prison respectively. For two years, each shall be fined.
After the small sweetness, there is a big conspiracy
Lu Fang still can’t forget the hot summer of 2015 . At that time, Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu went to her company after being introduced by someone. The two claimed to be the person in charge of Zhejiang Tai Aini Import and Export Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Tai Aini Company”). They had several large orders from overseas customers, and they came to discuss cooperation with her this time.
Lu Fang, who has worked in shopping malls for many years, did not immediately respond positively. Ni and Song noticed her concerns and warmly invited her to visit Tai Aini Company. There, Lu Fang saw with her own eyes that Tai Aini Company had rented an entire office building in Hangzhou. It had all the business licenses and other documents in place, and the registered capital was said to be as high as 100 million yuan. She also learned that the company had a partner in the United States, and the bad records of this partner could not be found online, so her worries were reduced by three points.
What really won Lu Fang’s trust was the “pleasant” cooperation that followed. Starting from the end of 2015, the two parties signed two small orders. “The payment time stipulated in the contract was 35 days after delivery, but the money arrived several days in advance.” Tai Aini Company’s “keep its promise” approach made Lu Fang completely put down her guard.
From January to May 2016, Lu Fang and Tai Aini Company signed four purchase and sales contracts totaling 13 million yuan, including nearly 300,000 cotton-padded clothes and jackets. . At this time, Lu Fang no longer hesitated, started production at full capacity, and sent batches of output to the United States.
However, when Lu Fang shipped goods worth more than 12 million yuan, the other party only paid 400,000 yuan, and the rest of the money was still missing. When faced with demands, the two claimed that “the American company’s goods have not been sold out and the payment has not been recovered,” and they repeatedly shied away.
When Lu Fang went to Tai Aini Company again, she found that the building was empty. She suddenly felt that something was wrong, so she had to sell the goods with a remaining value of nearly 1 million yuan for 100,000 yuan. The payment for the goods that had been shipped has not been recovered yet. So far, Lu Fang’s losses have exceeded 12 million yuan.
There is a black hand behind the “puppet”
Lu Fang’s experience is not unique. Since 2015, Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu have used similar deception to defraud more than 20 textile companies in Hangzhou, Yiwu, Xiangshan, Pinghu, Fujian, Guangdong and other places in Zhejiang.
“In July 2015, Ni Lizhong, Song Guozhu and others established Taiaini Company. Although it is an import and export company, it actually has no economic strength. To put it bluntly, it is a void. Shell company.” A former employee of Tai Aini Company revealed.
However, this does not prevent the two from using their usual trick-the white wolf with empty gloves. Tai Aini Company often identifies and hires a group of practitioners with rich connections and experience in the industry, and under their influence, contacts some textile companies to express their willingness to cooperate, and pays the price on time in several small transactions. The other party is ready to take the long term and catch big fish.
After the business owners confidently signed large orders and shipped goods, Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu stopped paying for the goods and used various excuses. For example, the U.S. partner also The goods were not sold, payment required complicated procedures, funds were frozen, etc.
It is understood that Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu are only links in this contract fraud chain, playing the role of agents, and the tens of millions of yuan in goods defrauded were eventually exported. It was given to Zhang who was far overseas.
According to Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu’s account, Zhang used many overseas companies under his name as the main body, and used domestic trading companies or individuals as intermediaries to defraud domestic enterprises under the banner of clothing procurement. Many textile companies collect thousands of containers of clothing products and then sell them at low prices to make a profit. A few years ago, Zhang used high-priced orders to induce companies to ship goods. After receiving the goods, Zhang disappeared. Therefore, Zhang is known as the “Textile Enterprise Killer” in the industry. Later, when Zhang became notorious in China, he started to play the trick of supporting a puppet.
In 2014, Ni and Song met Zhang during business dealings and later became Zhang’s agents in China. Under his instruction, they defrauded domestic textile companies of huge amounts of goods. . Ni and Song were well aware of Zhang’s past behavior, but chose to conceal Zhang’s true identity from the victim company. “If Zhang’s true identity is revealed, domestic customers will definitely not accept orders.” Ni Lizhong explained afterwards.
After being deceived, Lu Fang went to the United States to collect payment from Zhang. Zhang initially promised to pay it off before the end of the year, but in the end he never paid a penny. Later, Zhang simply disappeared. Like Lu Fang��There are many victims of business owners who have traveled across the ocean to defend their rights, but without exception, they all returned without success due to Zhang’s refusal to cooperate and lack of familiarity with local policies and laws.
Are you an accomplice in fraud, or a victim of fraud?
After receiving reports from some of the murdered business owners, the public security organs quickly arrested Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu and brought them to justice.
In the review and prosecution stage, the Shaoxing Municipal Procuratorate found that in addition to Tai Aini Company, Ni and Song had successively established Zhejiang Zengchuang, Hangzhou Yingyu and other import and export companies in just a few years. company, their explanation for this is “Because the previous customer’s payment has not been settled, it is impossible to continue cooperation, and I can only find new customers.” The two said that because Zhang had been in arrears with the payment, they were unable to pay the victim company.
Since Zhang did not fulfill the contract, why did the two of them continue to send goods from the victimized textile company abroad? “Zhang told me that he had an oil field abroad and would have funds to pay for it in the future, so I believed him.” Faced with the prosecutor’s interrogation, Ni Lizhong expressed his innocence and emphasized that he had no intention of contract fraud. .
Are they also deceived, or are they colluding with Zhang? The answer to this question is crucial to the conviction and sentencing of this case. In this regard, the prosecutor carefully and carefully reviewed the case files and evidence on file, and believed that Ni and Song’s companies were incapable of performing the contract and were insolvent. However, they still frequently changed companies to sign purchase and sale contracts, and used fictitious facts to confuse the victims. Enterprise, the reasons and excuses for not performing the contract are obviously contrary to common sense. The above all indicate that the two are seriously suspected of contract fraud.
As the procuratorate twice returned for supplementary investigation and conducted supplementary investigation on its own, a series of new key evidence also entered the prosecutor’s sight. The WeChat chat records between Ni Lizhong and Zhang show that the two parties have discussed many times how to deal with the victimized business owners and expand new supply companies. In addition, the prosecutor dug deeper for clues through a bank card photo on his mobile phone and found that Zhang sent people to remit money to Ni Lizhong’s personal account many times. It can be presumed that the money was illegal benefits paid by Zhang to Ni Lizhong, and Ni Lizhong It is also impossible to reasonably explain the source and nature of the money.
Based on all the evidence in the case, the prosecutor believed that the actions of Ni Lizhong and Song Guozhu constituted the crime of contract fraud. In addition, Ni Lizhong also defrauded the victim enterprise of 1 million yuan in the name of “borrowing”, constituting the crime of fraud.
In the end, the procuratorate prosecuted Ni Lizhong on suspicion of contract fraud and fraud, and prosecuted Song Guozhu on suspicion of contract fraud. After trial, the court accepted the charges and criminal facts charged by the procuratorate and made the above judgment in accordance with the law. Since Zhang is overseas, the public security organs are still continuing to investigate his criminal behavior.
Send risk reminder letter to enterprises
September 16 , prosecutors made a special trip to a number of victimized companies and sent private enterprise business risk warning letters to business operators, reminding business operators to enhance their awareness of risk prevention and understand the credit status of the other party through various channels before transactions. Signing contracts must be done carefully, and important transaction data such as contracts, shipping records, and chat records must be properly kept. Once you are illegally violated, you should report the case promptly and actively cooperate with the judicial authorities in the investigation.
“It is not easy for businesses to operate under the influence of the epidemic. We can understand your desire to do business as soon as possible, but criminals have precisely seized on this mentality.” The prosecutor repeatedly reminded , “There has always been an unspoken rule of ‘accepting orders on credit’ in the textile industry, which has created hidden dangers for criminals to default on their accounts and make profits. Therefore, for unfamiliar transaction partners, guarantee means should be fully used to minimize transaction risks.”
Currently, the Shaoxing Municipal Procuratorate is taking this case as an opportunity to sort out the common risks of being defrauded in the operation of textile enterprises, and deeply analyze the social governance issues behind the case. It plans to join hands with the city in the next step. Textile industry associations strengthen collaboration, strengthen supervision, and create an honest and orderly market environment and a fair and just legal environment for the development of private enterprises. </p
