Jiangsu, China, June 12th – Self-proclaimed ‘IT Man’ but acting as a hacker, stole ‘Radar Coin’ online and sold it for over 420,000 yuan. Recently, Yang某 was formally charged by the Haizhou District Procuratorate with the crime of illegal acquisition of computer information system data. According to the prosecution, Yang某 was not charged with theft because ‘virtual property’ has been legally defined as not being property.

　　Case One: ‘IT Man’ Successfully Guesses Passwords Multiple Times

　　Although Yang Mou has a low level of education, his skills in dealing with computers or smartphones can be called ‘first-class’. Boasting himself as an ‘IT man’, he not only plays various online games proficiently, but also sees his virtual wealth soaring, and can easily crack network accounts and passwords and intrude into others’ computer systems with his excellent skills.

　　In the first half of 2016, he saw that ‘Ladacoin’ (a type of online casino and how to find it) was selling well in the online market and started to think of illegal ways. In July of the same year, he logged into the Ladacoin website using his computer and mobile phone at home, adopted the method of inputting account numbers and login passwords to guess, and deduced more than 300 ‘Ladacoin’ website account numbers and passwords of the online player Gao Mou, and transferred all these ‘Ladacoin’ to his own accountonline casino plan and The latest entrance. After getting away with it, he first sold the ‘Ladacoin’ on the ‘Ladacoin’ website, and then exchanged the virtual ‘money’ in the account into RMB through a network player, illegally obtaining a high profit of more than 420,000 yuan.

　　According to the victim’s report, the police network police came to the door. Due to the large amount involved, Yang Mou was detained by the public security organs and later arrested upon approval by the procuratorial organs. At present, the procuratorial organ has initiated a public prosecution against Yang Mou for suspected illegal acquisition of computer information system data.

　　According to the provisions of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China and relevant judicial interpretations, if a person illegally acquires computer information system data or illegally controls a computer information system, and has the following serious circumstances: obtaining identity authentication information of more than 10 groups of payment settlement, securities trading, futures trading, and other online financial services; obtaining other identity authentication information of more than 500 groups; illegally controlling more than 20 computer information systems; obtaining illegal gains of more than 5,000 yuan or causing economic losses of more than 10,000 yuan, it constitutes the crime of illegal acquisition of computer information system data or illegal control of computer information system. The punishment is imprisonment of less than three years or criminal detention, and a fine may be imposed; if the quantity or amount reaches more than 5 times the standard mentioned above, and the circumstances are particularly serious, the punishment is imprisonment of three to seven years, and a fine shall be imposed.

　　Case Two: Sentenced for Stealing ‘Ladacoin’ in Nanjing

　　It is learned that Tang Mou, a native of Haizhou City, was previously sentenced to three years and six months in prison and a fine of 30,000 yuan by the Liushui District Court of Nanjing City for illegal gains from stealing ‘Ladacoin’, charged with the crime of illegal acquisition of computer information system data.

　　Tang Mou is a young man in his 90s. On July 9, 2016, he entered a ‘Ladacoin’ trading group at his home in Haizhou District through an online platform, and used the information he obtained from the group to deduce the 9 ‘Ladacoin’ account names of the victim Zhang Mou (a Nanjing native).

　　Due to Zhang Zhe’s simple and predictable account password setting, Tang Mou obtained Zhang Zhe’s account transaction password through speculation and multiple inputs. He then logged into Zhang Zhe’s ‘Ladacoin’ account with a computer, transferred approximately 17,000 ‘Ladacoin’ from Zhang Zhe’s ‘Ladacoin’ account to his own ‘Ladacoin’ account, and sold them on the ‘Ladacoin’ website, illegally obtaining approximately 600,000 yuan in RMB.

　　Subsequently, Tang某 transferred 318,000 yuan to his own bank card through the cash withdrawal function on the website platform, and the remaining more than 200,000 yuan was intercepted by the platform and failed to be transferred to Tang某’s bank card.

　　After Zhang discovered the abnormality of his account, he immediately reported to the police, and a few days later, Tang某 was captured by the police in Liushui, Nanjing.sports betting secrets and Where is it

　　After the case was brought to court, during the trial, the prosecutor stated that the ‘radar coins’ illegally obtained by the defendant in this case do not belong to the common currency of our country, but are only applicable to a small group of people, and therefore the case cannot be characterized as theft, but should be applicable to the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data.

　　As Tang某 admitted his criminal facts truthfully after his arrest and his relatives repaid the victim’s economic losses of 310,000 yuan, the court ultimately imposed a lenient penalty on him.

　　Judge’s comments

　　The online casino and how to find it is not considered property.

　　There was once a controversy over whether online casino and how to find it, such as game coins, radar coins, and Bitcoin, can be included in traditional concepts of property, and thus can become the object of offense for the crime of theft.

　　However, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate have issued special documents on this issue. Zhang Qinglei, deputy chief judge of the Criminal Division II of the Intermediate People’s Court of the city, said. In 2013, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued ‘Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Theft’, at that time the opinion of the Supreme People’s Court was: During the drafting process of the ‘Interpretation’, some opinions were put forward that it should be clearly stated in the ‘Interpretation’ that the act of stealing virtual property such as game coins should be punished as theft. After research, it was considered that this opinion was not appropriate. For the act of stealing virtual property, if it is indeed necessary to regulate it under the ‘Criminal Law’, it can be punished according to the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data and other computer-related crimes, and should not be treated as theft.

　　Zhang Qinglei introduced that the Supreme People’s Court proposed such an opinion mainly for several reasons. Firstly, virtual property has obvious differences from tangible property such as money and goods, as well as intangible property such as electricity and gassports betting online website and The latest method. To interpret it as the object of the crime of theft exceeds the jurisdiction of judicial interpretation. Secondly, the legal attribute of virtual property is computer information system data, and the act of illegally obtaining computer information system data can of course be subject to conviction and sentencing for computer-related crimes.

　　Applying the crime of theft to the act of stealing virtual property on the internet will bring a series of tricky problems, especially the identification of the amount of theft, which currently lacks a universally accepted calculation method. The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s ‘Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Endangering the Security of Computer Information Systems’ clearly specifies the specific standards for conviction and sentencing for the crime of illegally obtaining data of computer information systems. Applying this charge can result in a fair punishment and achieve the appropriate correspondence between crime, responsibility, and punishment. Zhang Qinglei said, ‘In addition, from the perspective of overseas criminal legislation and judicial practice, there are few cases where the act of stealing virtual property on the internet is treated as theft.’ (Shi Weiping, Li Chao, Wang Fengjuan)