From April 13th to 15th, Chen Yichao’s bribery case was heard in the People’s Court of Ganzhou District, Zhangye City, Gansu Province. China Youth Daily Zhongqing Online Reporter Lu Yijie/photo
On November 25, 2011, Fan Xiuling (left) and Chen Yichao (right) gave the personal account named "Jia Yuan" a voucher for transfer. Fan Xiuling/Photo courtesy
Chen Yichao, 57, has gray hair. He hunched slightly and limped into the court, expressionless.
At one time, the gold merchant’s biggest handwriting was to earn 100 million yuan in one fell swoop; However, after the procuratorate found that he paid a bribe of 300,000 yuan for a car, he lost his freedom. Although there is no trial or conviction, as early as more than four years ago, Chen Yichao’s property of at least 10 million yuan has nothing to do with him — — Some commission for discipline inspection, discipline inspection cadres and prosecutors have become the masters of these wealth.
Among these properties, three cars were transferred to the General Office of the CPC Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and two cars were changed to the name of the staff of the People’s Procuratorate of Ganzhou District, Zhangye City, Gansu Province. In addition, at least 9.52 million yuan of funds were transferred to the personal accounts of the discipline inspection cadres in Gansu Province and the prosecutors handling cases in the People’s Procuratorate of Ganzhou District, and one of the transfers was handled by the wife of the discipline inspection cadres working in the bank.
The interviewed scholars told China Youth Daily and Zhongqing Online reporter that in the process of criminal proceedings, any institution can only temporarily detain the property before the court decides, and cannot transfer the ownership. If the property is transferred to an individual’s name, "it is a violation of discipline and a new corruption."
"In this case, I think it is not a big deal to be suspected of bribery. The big thing is these properties!" At the trial site of Ganzhou District People’s Court on April 13, Chen Yichao, who pleaded not guilty, said that he would report the case handlers.
Gold miners were questioned by prosecutors at the provincial commission for discipline inspection.
Chen Yichao is from Tianshui, Gansu. Earlier, he worked in Tianshui Station of Gansu Provincial Material Administration Bureau for 17 years. There was a special railway line for transporting ore in the station, and he contacted a group of people who "mined". In the mid-1990s, when the Property Management Bureau was restructured, Chen Yichao decided to find his own way out and do "mining" business.
The gold mine brought wealth to Chen Yichao, which also made his fate turn sharply. In late May 2011, he was taken away by the case handlers in Lanzhou, and then the case handlers found his wife Fan Xiuling from the hotel.
Fan Xiuling used to be an employee of a bank in Tianshui. She recalled that she was asked about the relationship between Chen Yichao and citic guoan Gold Company, and what property she had at home, such as real estate, vehicles and deposits in bank cards.
Citic guoan Gold Company is a wholly state-owned subsidiary of CITIC Guoan Group, which is well-known in the domestic gold industry. In May 2000, Chen Yichao, who wanted to develop Toutanzi Gold Mine in Huixian County, Gansu Province, reached a cooperation intention with the gold company in the name of a company.
In the next three years, the Gold Company won the exploration right and decided to set up a new joint-stock company in cooperation with another state-owned enterprise in Huixian County. The Gold Company invested in mining rights and held 37% of the shares.
Due to the restructuring and other reasons, the gold company actually withdrew from business. In June 2006, Chen Yichao agreed to transfer 37% of his shares in the name of Gold Company, which made him earn 101.88 million yuan.
"Many of the previous investments were made by others, and this income has to be paid back." Fan Xiuling said. After several years of hard work, Chen Yichao bought eight properties in Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Sanya, including BMW, Mitsubishi and Audi.
These properties are now considered by Ganzhou District People’s Procuratorate to be purchased with illegally profited funds. The indictment alleges that in the process of cooperation with the gold company, Chen Yichao repeatedly promised to reward Liu Wenge, the former deputy general manager of the company, after making profits. In May 2007, Liu Wenge offered to buy a car for him, and Chen Yichao paid 307,000 yuan with his personal bank card and bought a Toyota Camry car for Liu Wenge.
According to the indictment, Chen Yichao concealed the fact of cooperation with the gold company and obtained the exploration right in the name of the company; Without application, approval, filing or approval, the exploration right was privately invested in the name of the gold company, and then transferred to other companies, which obtained huge illegal benefits and "actually made a profit of 95.17 million yuan".
On May 29, 2011, the People’s Procuratorate of Ganzhou District decided to place him under residential surveillance. At first, he was suspected of corruption.
Chen Yichao, who is not from party member, has experienced the plot that he only saw on TV. According to the investigation or interrogation record of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Ganzhou District People’s Procuratorate, he was investigated or interrogated many times in the "case handling point of Jin Peng Building Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection in Lanzhou City". The interrogators and investigators were both Ganzhou District prosecutors and Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection cadres.
At the scene of the trial, Chen Yichao repeatedly said that he had been living in the case-handling point of the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of Jin Peng Building during more than 200 days of residential surveillance. The prosecutor did not deny this.
According to the reporter’s field visit on April 10th this year, the Jin Peng Building, which opened in 2004, has 12 floors, and only all the street windows on the fifth floor are surrounded by iron bars. Fan Xiuling said that the fifth floor is the case handling point. The reporter tried to stay on the fifth floor of the building, but the waiter declined on the grounds that the water pipe was broken and there was no hot water.
Search, seizure and freezing, Chen Yichao’s property was involved in the storm of criminal cases. On the third day of residential surveillance, the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection temporarily withheld the "cash of 300,000 yuan" involved. A month later, all vehicles under Chen Yichao’s name were temporarily detained.
At least 9.52 million yuan has been transferred to the personal account of discipline inspection cadres or prosecutors.
There are more and more properties withheld and sealed, and Fan Xiuling didn’t know where the money was stored until November 25, 2011.
Fan Xiuling said that the investigators found her and asked her to remit 700,000 yuan from her China bank account with the last number of 1584 to a personal name called Jia Yuan. Jia Yuan is a cadre of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection contacted by Fan Xiuling. According to public reports, in 2013, Jia Yuan was still attending the meeting of the discipline inspection department in Gansu Province.
"I’m not voluntary, I said I don’t turn. The case handler said that this was illegal income. I think the statement is weird, but I don’t understand it specifically. In the end, it’s not up to me. " Fan Xiuling said, "I don’t know about other issues, but I work in a bank and I have to use a court judgment to deduct deposits. I know that."
The Application for Remittance in China Bank shows that the purpose of this remittance is "case payment". Another Receipt for Bank Card Withdrawal of Agricultural Bank of China stated that on the same day, Jia Yuan also received a "Kaka Transfer" of 900,000 yuan from Chen Yichao’s bank card.
On the same day, the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection recorded in the registration form of temporarily detained and sealed items that "the cash involved in the case handed over by Fan Xiuling was 1.6 million yuan only", which was the sum of the two transfers. The registration form shows that the custodian of this paragraph is Jia Yuan. The reporter found that the custodian of the other six registration forms is also Jia Yuan.
On this day, Chen Yichao was released from residential surveillance and changed to bail pending trial, and the alleged crime was also changed to bribery.
Chen Yichao and his wife began to investigate where the money was temporarily detained and sealed. They retrieved the bank voucher and found that at least 5 funds and 8.52 million yuan had been transferred to Jia Yuan’s personal account with the ending number of 8717. The opening bank of this account is Lanzhou Jinchang Road Sub-branch of Agricultural Bank of China, and the seal of one receipt shows that the manager is a Ms. Zhu.
China Youth Daily reporter came to the business office of the branch on April 11th this year. Many employees said that Ms. Zhu was indeed an employee in the business office and worked on the 5th floor of the building. Official sources confirmed that she was the wife of a cadre of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection. The cadre participated in the investigation of Chen Yichao’s case, and his name was seen in the transcript many times.
Among the aforementioned transfers, the earliest known transfer was RMB 1.803 million on October 19, 2011, which was used as "payable". At that time, Chen Yichao was still monitoring his residence.
The name "Sun Wannian" was signed at the signature of the remitter and the blank space of the payee’s information. The reporter found that the contact number left in the "payer" column was also Sun Wannian’s. He was qualified as a senior auditor in 2010. In a public information in March 2012, he was identified as the deputy director of the Audit Bureau of Tianzhu County, Gansu Province.
The personal account of the prosecutor also received the money involved. On November 7, 2011, a man surnamed Yan’s account had 1 million yuan remitted to the account of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China named "Chen Guoxun". Four days later, the money was recorded in the registration form of temporarily detained and sealed articles of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, and the witness was Chen Guoxun.
Chen Guoxun is the prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ganzhou District Procuratorate who interrogated Chen Yichao. In April 2014, Chen was appointed as a member of the Procuratorial Committee of Ganzhou District Procuratorate.
Li Chengyan, a professor at the School of Government Administration of Peking University, told reporters that no matter what the situation, there are serious problems in transferring the money involved into personal accounts, which are unreasonable, unreasonable and illegal. Zhu Xiaoding, a defense lawyer and lawyer of Beijing Cailiang Law Firm, presented these transfer vouchers during the trial.
The prosecutor responded that if there is evidence that the money is remitted to the personal name of the prosecutor and the cadre of the Commission for Discipline Inspection, it can be reported and charged.
The prosecutor did not explain whether the money later flowed to a special account. However, she said that when she received the money involved, she had received a check with an amount of 24.7087 million yuan. The defense lawyer asked for verification in court, but the prosecutor did not show it.
Three cars, including BMW, were transferred to the General Office of the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission.
Chen Yichao and his wife did not expect that although they walked out of the residence where they lived under surveillance, their three cars were transferred to the General Office of the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection. The three cars are BMW compact car, Pajero compact off-road bus and Audi Q7 compact off-road bus. The license plates are Shanghai FL8996, Beijing EP7763 and Beijing KX0829 respectively.
China Youth Daily Zhongqing Online reporter confirmed from official sources that the owners of these three cars were originally Chen Yichao, but they were all changed to "General Office of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection".
In fact, the transfer of vehicle ownership has already begun before the investigation stage is over. In late December 2011, the first car completed the ownership transfer procedure, and the next day, the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ganzhou District Procuratorate just formed the Investigation End Report.
At the beginning of January 2012, the last car was transferred to the name of the General Office of the Commission for Discipline Inspection. However, two months later, the Zhangye City Procuratorate handed over Chen Yichao’s bribery case to the Ganzhou District Procuratorate for review and prosecution.
According to official sources, the registration of each car was transferred from Beijing and Shanghai on the day when the transfer formalities were completed. In the summer of 2012, BMW and Audi cars underwent annual inspection, which means that the new owners may have used the vehicles.
In 1998, the Notice of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision of the CPC Central Committee on Strengthening the Management of Confiscation and Recovery of Illegal Funds and Articles by Discipline Inspection and Supervision Organs stipulated that all confiscated and recovered funds and articles handled by the case-handling offices should be handed over to the financial department of the organ for unified management, and the financial department of the organ should be managed by a special person and set up a special account; Temporary detention and storage of funds and materials should also be properly managed by special personnel; No interception, misappropriation, embezzlement or private sharing is allowed.
According to Chen Yichao’s statement in court, the transfer procedures of these three cars were handled by the case handlers with their official seals in Beijing and Shanghai at the end of 2011. The prosecutor did not comment on this.
For the reason of "transfer before judgment", some media recently contacted some case handlers of the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, but they were rejected. On the afternoon of April 15, the relevant office phone number of Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection was not answered.
Two other cars were also accused of involvement. Lawyer Zhu Xiaoding introduced that the cars were Audi A6L sedan and Toyota Camry sedan, and the license plates were Jing HL4986 and Jing NR1807 respectively. They were transferred to Dong Shaohua and Ma Jian around the end of 2011. The reporter confirmed this statement from official sources.
Zhu Xiaoding asked the public prosecutor to issue the identity information of Dong Shaohua and Ma Jian, but the public prosecutor did not produce it. The public prosecutor later said that if there is a problem with the disposal of property, the defender can directly sue.
Insiders of Ganzhou District People’s Procuratorate told China Youth Daily that Ma Jian was a section-level procurator of the hospital, while Dong Shaohua was a driver of the hospital, accounting for the establishment of the workers. However, the name of the driver Dong Shaohua appeared in the "Inquirer" column of an inquiry record on September 20, 2011.
"How can the property be transferred to the unit or individual?" Professor Li Chengyan is puzzled. Zhu Lijia, a professor at the National School of Administration, said that before the court ruled, the property involved could only be seized and ownership could not be transferred.
The reporter noticed that some of the undertakers and custodians of the case overlapped. Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection’s registration forms of temporarily detained and sealed articles on June 10th and 19th, 2011 show that three vehicles were temporarily detained and sealed in these two days, and the investigators were Sun Bing and Bai Zhao Bin, and the custodians were also them. Their names also appear in the "inquirer" or "talker" of several transcripts.
If the supervision department of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection handles the case by itself, this practice is not allowed. In 2007, "Regulations on the Management of Money and Articles Involved in Self-managed Cases by the Supervision Department of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (Trial)" requires that the management of money and articles involved must be legal, fair, accurate and timely, the case undertaker and the custodian should be separated, and the case handling department and the custody department should perform their respective duties.
The procuratorate refused to check and identify the money involved on the spot.
The problem of property was finally exposed in the prosecution stage.
Lawyer Zhu Xiaoding found that in July and September, 2015, Ganzhou District Procuratorate issued two identical indictments, both of which claimed to "recover a Toyota Camry from Liu Wenge". However, in December of that year, this car disappeared from the registration form for the transfer and handling of money and materials involved by the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and the prosecution.
In this regard, the public prosecutor explained that Liu Wenge’s case had been finalized in November 2012 and the car had been disposed of. She didn’t issue a handling voucher. In fact, this is the car that was transferred to the name of Dong Shaohua, the driver of the procuratorate in 2011.
The aforementioned registration form shows that the money involved in the case was transferred to 24.7087 million yuan, and another 178,900 yuan was turned over to the state treasury. Zhu Xiaoding believes that the case has not yet been decided and there should be no money turned over to the state treasury.
In January 2016, the prosecution again issued a change indictment, adding a series of property lists sealed up, detained and frozen by the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection, including three cars that have been transferred to the General Office of the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Chen Yichao and his lawyer said that Pajero was purchased in December 2000, which obviously has nothing to do with the bribery case; Another car that was transferred to the name of Ma Jian, a procurator at the official level, is not in the indictment and should be returned.
The prosecutor did not respond to this at the trial.
The list of withheld money and materials such as vehicles also attracted the attention of defense lawyers. The lawyer said that there are several registration forms and search transcripts of temporarily detained and sealed items on different dates in the file, but there is only one search warrant. The prosecutor admitted that the investigation organ only transferred a search warrant.
According to the lawyer, the investigators of many of the aforementioned lists are cadres of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and the witnesses are prosecutors handling cases. According to the judicial interpretation, the case-handling personnel should not be witnesses.
Yang Xuelin, a lawyer of Beijing Shouxin Law Firm, pleaded not guilty to Chen Yichao. He believes that Chen Yichao does not have a Beijing hukou, and buying a car is only under the name of Liu Wenge, the former deputy general manager of CITIC Gold Company, not a bribe; Chen Yichao didn’t seek illegal benefits, and Liu Wenge didn’t provide substantial help to Chen before the company was transformed into a private enterprise.
The prosecutor insisted that the facts of Chen Yichao’s bribery crime were clear and the evidence was indeed sufficient.
In fact, even if he was acquitted, more than four years ago, Chen Yichao’s tens of millions of property had been transferred to the name of the case-handling unit or individual. Legally, these properties were at least once owned by others.
On the morning of April 14, Chen Yichao and his defense lawyer proposed to check and identify the money and goods involved, such as the transfer of the temporarily detained vehicle and the vehicle odometer, to determine whether the vehicle has been used after being temporarily detained. They also want to check whether the detained cigarettes and alcohol were originally purchased by Chen Yichao.
When the presiding judge asked the public prosecutor for advice, the public prosecutor did not object.
Professor Li Chengyan told reporters that many people reported that some corruption control departments, such as customs, made a fortune because of their governance. "Sometimes, it is right to confiscate the money and goods involved, but where the money flows is a new problem. Some are distributed internally, and some even take it for resale. "
However, on the morning of April 15, Chen Yichao made his final statement, and the defense lawyer asked the court to arrange to check the money and materials involved, but the prosecutor refused, and the defense lawyer then protested.
After a 10-minute recess, the presiding judge relayed the prosecutor’s reply after asking the leaders of the procuratorate: the procuratorate did not agree to show the money and materials involved in the case in court, nor did it agree to arrange for on-site inspection.
Newspaper, Zhangye, Gansu, April 15th
