"Doubling the income from investing in movies", "Sharing the dividend of movie development" and "The entry threshold is as low as 5,000 yuan" … … In recent years, similar "opportunities" for film and television investment have increased. Some lawless elements used the so-called movie and television box office income right to raise funds from unspecified public and then commit fraud, resulting in some people being deceived. Many people have warned that it is necessary to be alert to related crimes that undermine the investment confidence of the film and television market and even evolve into a larger-scale stakeholder economic crime, undermining the national financial and market economic order.
The police solved the case and revealed the truth of "film and television investment"
Recently, the Economic Investigation Corps of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau closed the net in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei and other places, cracked a contract fraud case involving film and television investment, and took criminal compulsory measures against 44 people involved, involving more than 500 million yuan.
It is reported that since July, 2018, the criminal suspect Chen Mou, together with Li and many others, has used the name of pretending to be a film producer or a co-producer through a number of companies under his control, or knowingly agreed with the producer and the co-producer that the film share cannot be transferred again, and still fabricated the film investment cost and sold the profit share of several well-known films.
In order to achieve rapid drainage, the gang recruited a number of intermediary agents across the country, attracted investors through advertising web page promotion, short video live introduction, random phone calls, blind addition of social software friends, etc., and won the trust by arranging marketing words such as "no risk", "low threshold" and "high return" to drain investors to the gang.
In addition, the gang will also organize investors to visit the company on the spot, and show them forged film project books, copyright agreements signed with producers and other materials to trick investors into signing investment agreements and paying investment funds. After the job is done, the intermediary can receive a high commission.
After the expiration of the above-mentioned movie box office billing period, Chen Mou and others evaded the performance by frequently changing the company’s main body, changing shareholders, legal representatives and business locations. At the same time, according to Chen Mou’s instructions, the criminal suspect Li prevaricated and perfunctory investors for various reasons.
Up to the time of the crime, the suspect Chen Mou and others sold the share of 60 films. Except for a small amount of the proceeds, Chen Mou used it to buy movie shares, pay investors a refund and distribute infrared, and most of the investment funds were used to pay high commissions for agents, invest in shares and spend money by individuals.
"In recent years, film and television investment contract fraud cases have become increasingly frequent. The Shanghai police have handled more than a dozen such cases, involving a total amount of over 1 billion yuan and tens of thousands of victims, involving many parts of the country." Jiang Min, detachment leader of the fourth detachment of the Economic Investigation Corps of Shanghai Public Security Bureau, said.
Online "fishing" is partly characterized by "illegal fund-raising"
Through search, the reporter found that there are a large number of platforms for the transfer of film and television box office income rights in the market. On related websites, apps, and applets, there are a large number of movie box office income investment projects that are about to be released or being released.
For example, a comedy movie recently released indicates that the estimated rate of return is 122% to 196%. The estimated yield of an animated film adapted from a traditional myth in China is as high as 455% to 825%, and the initial investment is 100,000 yuan. Many "projects" show that thousands of people have participated or made appointments.
The case-handling personnel told reporters that such film and television investment projects are difficult to distinguish between true and false. Criminals cover up illegal acts and escape attacks by setting traps at different levels.
These "projects" are confusing, and they evade supervision by playing the "formal investment" card. In related cases, some lawless elements bought a small amount of rights and interests of some unpopular films from film producers or "brokers" in the secondary market; Others take shooting new movies as the title; Others directly forge the film project investment agreement and transfer voucher signed with the producer.
According to relevant research, if the film producer wants to recover the investment cost of the film, the box office must reach at least 3.3 times of the investment cost. In fact, in related cases, 30% to 50% of the defrauded investment funds were used by criminals to pay commissions and commissions for "attracting customers" intermediaries. In addition, criminals also inflated the true cost of buying rights and interests several times and then peddled them. Investors suffered huge losses without exception.
There are also some "projects" that "financialize" their rights and interests, showing the characteristics of fund-raising fraud. Previously, in a related fraud case uncovered by the Shanghai Economic Investigation Department, the criminals signed an investment agreement with the producer to become the first producer of the film, and fictionalized the real cost of 40 million yuan to 160 million yuan, splitting the box office share of the film into postcards with a price of 8,000 yuan each in the form of subscription. Each postcard can be used as proof of 0.005% box office income right. After obtaining illegal gains, the criminals let the film be released or not, which eventually led to the investors losing all their money.
The investigators revealed that the suspect had no background in film and television investment, and he applied the method of equity transfer of non-listed companies, showing some characteristics of the crime of fund-raising fraud and illegal absorption of public deposits.
Even if we understand these techniques, it is still difficult to crack down on these criminals. In the above-mentioned cases, Chen Mou established or acquired more than 20 different entities and companies in many places across the country, and set up separate sales teams with unrelated personnel. Chen Mou also recruited several people with innocent backgrounds as legal representatives and shareholders of the suspected company. After the incident, Chen Mou sought a number of "top contractors" to deal with the investigation by the public security organs, and trained the employees of the company to avoid their own risks.
It is reported that in many cases, when investors find that they have been cheated to ask for a statement, criminals will argue that "the box office of the film is not as expected due to various uncertain factors, resulting in investors’ losses", deliberately misleading investors to solve it through civil channels, and evading responsibility by changing the company’s main body afterwards.
The supervision system of film and television investment and financing needs to be improved
A number of investigators, experts and lawyers interviewed said that there are still gaps in the supervision of film and television investment, and it is necessary to prevent criminals from using film and television investment projects as props to collect money.
In view of the problem of overlapping functions in the supervision of the film and television and financial industries, industry insiders suggest that the supervision responsibilities should be further clarified, and relevant restraint policies should be introduced to strengthen the penetrating management of investment information. For example, film and television projects are required to truthfully fill in the information such as the investment share and the source of funds of the co-producers, and establish a complete film and television project file to prevent the investment for individuals from evolving into illegal financing for unspecified people.
In addition, improve the third-party supervision and guarantee mechanism. More third-party institutions, such as authorized banks and insurance companies, will be introduced to exercise the guarantee responsibility for the completion of the film. The guarantor may regularly require the producer or joint producer to submit the details of the source and use of funds, and supervise the abnormal situations such as unclear source of funds, illegal use, and large cost overruns. At the same time, give full play to the role of industry self-discipline, co-ordinate film and television related industry associations, strengthen professional ethics education, and prevent employees from cooperating with lawless elements to produce products.
Industry authorities and associations can make full use of industry resources, collect clues about complaints such as absorbing investment funds in the name of film and television investment, and improve the information sharing mechanism with market supervision, taxation, finance and other competent departments. Local industry authorities should strengthen cooperation with law enforcement and judicial organs, predict major risks in advance, and reach a consensus on cracking down on convictions.