As the first legal team in China to handle bank card freezing and unfreezing cases, the team has handled hundreds of bank card freezing cases in the past three years. In cases of trading virtual currencies and engaging in foreign trade, there are some innocent victims who have been frozen because they received illegal funds!

Do you know why the public security organs freeze your bank card? What is the underlying logic of freezing? With the deepening of the fight against telecommunications cybercrime, we predict that the freezing wave will continue for a long time. In response to the doubts of frozen friends, I hope this article can help them understand the legal issues related to bank card freezing, and at the same time provide an unfreezing path based on the team's practical experience in handling unfreezing. Hope it can give you some help in the cold winter.

First of all, the public security organs freeze your bank card. It’s not like what some frozen friends said. The public security organs can freeze whose bank card they want to freeze. There is a legal basis for freezing your bank card.

According to Article 2 of the "Relevant Provisions on the Application of Seizure and Freezing Measures in the Handling of Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs" "Public security organs shall, based on the needs of investigating crimes, seize and freeze the property involved in the case in accordance with the law. Relevant departments, units and individuals shall assist, Cooperate. "With the law, bank cards can be frozen based on the needs of criminal investigation, so what does your bank card have to do with crime?

The reason is that illicit money from criminal cases of fraud, online gambling, and pyramid schemes investigated by the public security organs flowed into the accounts involved. Because objectively, there is indeed an inflow of stolen funds in the bank card, the public security organs will doubt whether you are a person involved in the case, and all bank card accounts involved will be frozen in full. To a certain extent, in the eyes of the public security organs, the person who has received the frozen stolen money is a criminal suspect. The reason for not taking physical coercive measures is that you feel that your suspicion is not serious enough and is still needed. If sufficient evidence is collected in subsequent investigations, the public security organs will take individual coercive measures. After the fleet freezes the card, the public security agency will collect sufficient evidence during the investigation process and take criminal detention measures against the frozen person. In short, the frozen person belongs to the suspect list of the agency handling the case.

At the same time, the one-size-fits-all freezing method adopted by the public security organs is also to prevent funds from being transferred and causing irreparable losses to the victims. This is also the last choice of the public security organs under the pressure of handling the case. However, a one-size-fits-all freezing method will also affect the exercise of the legal property rights of some bona fide cardholders. At present, most friends who freeze things believe that the investigation agency can freeze them for up to 6 months and then defrost them when the freezing period expires. Is the maximum freezing period really 6 months? Will it really be automatically unfrozen after expiration?

Many friends who have been frozen understand that after a bank card is frozen, it can be automatically unfrozen after 6 months without the need to communicate with the bank or the public security agency. In fact, this is a big misunderstanding. The law is very clear. The public security organs can freeze your bank card for 72 hours or for 6 months based on investigation needs. Freeze for 6 months and refill for another 6 months!

72 hours is a temporary payment stop measure, targeting accounts suspected of committing crimes. According to Article 6 of the "Several Provisions on the Management of Property Involved by Public Security Organs in Cases", "After the public security organ takes measures against the property involved in the case, it shall promptly review it. If it is found to be irrelevant to the case, it shall be canceled and returned within three days."

If your bank card has not been unfrozen for 72 hours since it was frozen, your bank card has been identified by the public security agency as an account involved in the case. According to Article 243 of the "Procedural Regulations of Public Security Organs in Handling Criminal Cases", "The period for freezing deposits, remittances and other property is 6 months. Each freezing period shall not exceed 6 months." Many frozen friends have only read this previous sentence. The freezing period is 6 months, and the maximum freezing period is 6 months. Although the law stipulates that the policy is 6 months at a time, in fact it stipulates that the policy can be renewed upon expiration, which means that the freeze period is not 6 months. In fact, some case handling units always tell frozen card owners that the fraud suspect behind the stolen money has not yet arrived. You can't tell whether your card will resolve until the case is resolved. When will it be resolved? In practice, however, many fraudsters hide overseas. If the fraudster must be caught, then it can be judged that the card owner's card cannot be unfrozen. Really becomes the distant future.

In addition, when handling unfreezing cases, through communication with frozen friends, the frozen person often feels that it is wrong for the public security agency to freeze his bank card, and he feels aggrieved. Especially the virtual currency industry and foreign trade industry. Is it because the virtual currency industry and foreign trade industry are easy to collect black money? Why are these two industries more likely to receive stolen money than others?

The reason why the virtual currency and foreign trade industries are often frozen is nothing more than the trade characteristics of the virtual currency and foreign trade industries.

From the perspective of the virtual currency industry, criminals often take advantage of the decentralization and anonymity of virtual currencies to commit illegal crimes such as money laundering, which leads to a natural bias in case-handling units against virtual currencies, that is, transactions related to virtual currencies. It is a gray and black industry, and it always seems to be related to bad things like illegal crimes. And what you are trading is a bunch of numbers, the price is so high, there is no contract, no invoice, and no tax. You don’t even have basic information about the buyer.

For the foreign trade industry, it is first necessary to understand how the foreign trade industry collects payments, which is called the foreign exchange settlement method in the industry. At present, most domestic and foreign trade businesses choose to exchange currency through a third party. As long as the normal foreign trade payment is received, the foreign trade merchant will find a third party to exchange foreign exchange through the third party, transfer foreign currencies such as US dollars to the third party's account, and then the third party will pay the equivalent amount of RMB to the domestic bank card of the foreign trade merchant. This behavior is also known as "chain exchange". However, such transactions through third parties can easily result in illegal funds being received into bank accounts. This is also the reason why so many people in the foreign trade industry have their bank cards frozen.

To explain why virtual currencies and foreign trade are difficult to unfreeze, we need to understand why the public security organs do not unfreeze equivalent goods. Generally speaking, as long as there is a real and legal transaction behind the stolen money you receive, it is considered stolen money received from a paid transaction of equal value. In judicial practice, it is generally inclined to conclude that you are subjectively unaware. However, there are exceptions. In other words, although the stolen money was of equal value and paid, and you paid the same price for goods or services for the stolen money, your transaction is so unusual that it makes people question the motives of the transaction. What is it. At this time, even if the price is paid, we will not easily unfreeze it for you!

For example, if the police check the tap water and find it, you will accept it.

After receiving the stolen money, you then go to the 4S store that sells the car. You provide the contract, invoice, and delivery certificate behind the payment. If the price of the car is normal and there are no other abnormalities, then There is no reason for the police to continue freezing your card. However, if you are in an off-site trading group, or even use overseas chat software or encryption software to sell virtual currencies, physical gold, recharge cards, and Amazon shopping cards with some unknown people, at this time, your The entire transaction becomes very abnormal, and the public security organs have reason to think that you are evading supervision. If they do not understand all the circumstances behind it clearly and cannot prove that you are subjectively unaware or even should not be informed, it will be difficult to handle it for you. thaw.

So, not only can you pay for goods of equal value to handle the defrosting process, but you also need to prove that you are subjectively unaware of the stolen money, and you need to provide corresponding evidence.

For the virtual currency industry, the intuitive reason why the case handling unit does not easily unfreeze is: Why does the stable currency USDT have a price difference, allowing you to make a steady profit without losing money in OTC? The running water goes in and out quickly, which is very similar to running scores. So, is there something fishy in this? In addition: If you want to know about virtual currency OTC transactions, how do you understand them in legal documents? According to the 2021 924 document: OTC refers to: engaging in the exchange business of legal currency and virtual currency, and the business of buying and selling virtual currency as a central counterparty. According to the 924 document, OTC is an illegal financial activity. As for which criminal offense constitutes the illegal financial activity of OTC, there is great controversy in practice. The most appropriate crime is the crime of illegal business operations.

However, according to Article 225 of the Criminal Law, this requires explanation: Is OTC an intermediary scalper, or is it a payment and settlement institution for retail investors to enter the currency circle? However, no matter how you explain it, in short, your OTC behavior has been clarified in the document of the People's Bank of China and ten ministries and commissions, and it is an illegal financial activity. In theory, this has nothing to do with the freezing of stolen money, but in practice it has a lot to do with it. After all, OTC Conduct illegal financial activities.

For the foreign trade industry: According to the law, private exchange of foreign exchange is illegal and will destroy the country’s balance of foreign exchange payments. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange can impose administrative penalties if the amount exceeds 5 million. It constitutes a criminal offense. Therefore, in the case of virtual currency and currency exchange, how can the case handling unit easily unblock you?

However, it cannot be beaten to death with a stick: in virtual currency and foreign trade exchange, in some cases, if you receive stolen money, you need to be inclined to assume that you are not aware of it. For example, in on-site transactions, the flow of transactions was reviewed, and the buyers who were randomly selected were all reviewed. As for not signing a contract or not having an invoice, that is due to the characteristics of the industry. In addition, if you hold virtual currency, personal Simply selling the virtual currency you hold has no necessary connection with freezing or not; in foreign trade exchange, for example, customers in Iran do not have U.S. dollar reserves at all, so they can only exchange exchange through an intermediary. The time is desperate. Therefore, even in unconventional fields, specific problems must be analyzed concretely. If you really don’t know about the stolen money, how can you apply for unfreezing?

The reason why the public security agency freezes your bank card is that the public security agency believes that you are suspected of a crime. However, if the public security agency suspects you of being involved in the case and you prove your innocence and have no knowledge of the stolen money, you can also prove that you are legal. Transactional. Then according to Article 196 of the "Procedural Regulations on the Handling of Criminal Cases by Public Security Organs" (2020), "If the parties, defenders, litigation agents, and closely related persons have any of the following behaviors against the judicial organs and their staff, Have the right to appeal or accuse to the agency: (3) Seizing, detaining, freezing measures are taken against finances unrelated to the case; (4) Seizing, seizing, or freezing should be lifted but not lifted;" Article 247 stipulates "If the frozen property is found to be irrelevant to the case, financial institutions and other units shall be notified within three days to lift the freeze, and the owners of the frozen property shall be notified." The public security organs shall, in accordance with regulations, lift the freeze on bank cards.

Prove that you are not aware of the funds involved and do not belong to the accounts involved. You need to provide the bank statements of the accounts involved and ask the police which amount of money was collected in question; for which amount or amounts, the upstream Find out the payer's information; find out the reasons and basis for him to transfer the money to you, such as contracts, invoices, delivery notes, etc.

It does happen that the materials cannot be provided or the materials are not convincing. For example, those who engage in foreign trade take foreign exchange and exchange it for RMB at a bank and enter it into their account; they can get a sum of money from selling OTC virtual currency to someone they don’t know; there are also physical luxury goods that do not require a contract to be signed offline, Precious metal trading, advertising media services, phone bills, and data recharge. In the eyes of the police, there is a lack of contracts, invoices, and order information for specific transactions that fully correspond to your receipt. The police are also afraid of being fooled, so they need to find more indirect evidence to restore the transaction at that time. scene.

In the fight against telecommunications network crimes, the public security organs have the power to freeze bank cards that have received stolen money. However, in the process, the bank cards of some well-intentioned cardholders have been frozen innocently, and their legitimate property rights have been frozen. be violated. While the public security organs pay attention to efficiency in the process of initiating freezing measures, the process of unfreezing is often stuck. In addition, there is a single relief channel, and without professionals to organize the unfreezing materials and communicate with the public security organs, the unfreezing process is relatively long.

We believe that public security organs cannot only focus on combating crime and ignore the power of citizens’ property. At the same time, we also hope that merchants engaged in the virtual currency industry and foreign trade industry will be cautious in their transactions and keep transaction records during the transaction process to avoid the dilemma of receiving stolen money and causing their bank cards to be innocently frozen and then lack of unfreezing materials and unable to prove their innocence.

Finally, if there is a possibility of a criminal offense, it is also necessary to promptly entrust a professional lawyer to intervene in the case as soon as possible to help the "frozen friends" safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. Related Q&A: It is okay to freeze a bank card regardless of whether it is frozen. However, if the freeze is not processed, it will affect the use of the bank card, including deposits, withdrawals, loans, financial management, and third-party custody of funds in and out, etc. 1. In real life, if we encounter a situation where our bank card is frozen, we can ignore it. The answer is yes, but if we ignore it, the normal use of the bank card may be restricted, which will affect our normal transactions. . As we all know, when our card is blocked, we are unable to use some basic bank account functions properly. So how to unfreeze it? Actually, it depends on the reason for the freeze, because depending on the reason, the way they unfreeze is different. 2. So in our lives, when do we freeze? Let's take a look. First, automatic account protection. We know these bank accounts are self-protecting. Because they automatically become aware of this situation, they freeze funds to better protect their accounts. To control the transaction and avoid further impact. For example, if there is a large amount of money coming in and out, he will automatically identify the anomaly and may touch the protection mechanism. Cryogenically treated to avoid further effects. Of course, it is also possible that the password will be automatically locked or frozen because we entered the password incorrectly multiple times during operation. 3. Legal Aspects In addition to normal automatic account protection, sometimes it also automatically accesses bank accounts for legal reasons. Freeze accounts and limit personal spending. Therefore, we cannot break the law or the consequences will be very disturbing to us. So I hope everyone will pay attention so that we can really solve this problem. : The situation of freezing accounts has a huge impact on us, so we must pay attention. Only in this way can we truly avoid more accidents and avoid causing us more and more additional losses. We need to go to the bank immediately to verify the number of days of freezing, where the freezing public security bureau is, who the police officer responsible for processing is and what the contact information is. Banks can check all this information. Of course, if it’s just a temporary freeze for a few days, there’s no need to worry.