The Law on the Promotion of Private Economy stipulates that "the state promotes the construction of a system and mechanism for preventing and governing corruption at the source of private economic organizations", emphasizing in legal form the important role of anti-corruption in building a high-level socialist market economy system. What are the new characteristics of commercial corruption in the field of digital economy? How can we better prevent and govern commercial corruption? Recently, the People's Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing, released the "White Paper on Anti Commercial Corruption Prosecution Work (2020-2024)", which systematically reviewed 1253 cases of commercial corruption crimes handled in the past five years, summarized the characteristics of commercial corruption crimes, and provided risk prevention tips and governance suggestions. Feng, who colluded with both internal and external parties to fraudulently obtain a reward of 140 million yuan, is responsible for approving the entry of service providers, formulating reward policies, and implementing them at a short video platform company in Haidian District, Beijing. In order to expand its business and attract traffic, the company often introduces various subsidy policies to encourage service providers to settle in and operators to carry out activities. This type of policy is designed by Feng, the rules are explained by him, and the implementation process is also supervised by him. Feng has become a key "valve" connecting the company's financial chain with external suppliers. This showed Feng an opportunity to profit from it. Driven by an increasingly inflated desire, Feng quietly opened a "backdoor" leading to the abyss. Feng conspired with familiar external suppliers Tang, Yang, and others to carry out a plan to use his power to steal company assets. When formulating the new reward policy, Feng deliberately "reserved" loopholes and then continuously leaked internal operational data that should have been strictly kept confidential to Tang, Yang, and others. With the 'key' of internal data, external merchants only need to submit false application materials that meet the reward criteria to 'graft' the efforts of others into their own names. In just one year, a huge reward of 140 million yuan that should have been subsidized to service providers and operators through this secret "funding channel" was illegally embezzled by Feng and others. In order to "safely" cash out and transfer these ill gotten gains, Yang instructed his subordinate Wang and several others to register multiple "shell companies" in a short period of time. These companies only have one function, which is to receive the "reward money" paid by the short video platform company. After the "reward money" is received, it will be quickly transferred layer by layer and ultimately transferred to the secret account controlled by Yang. Electronic data review reveals the mystery of virtual currency money laundering: 140 million yuan of stolen money has been obtained. How to "safely" divide the stolen money and conceal its illegal source? Feng instructed Tang and Yang to use eight different overseas virtual currency trading platforms to exchange the huge amount of money they defrauded into virtual currencies such as Bitcoin in batches. However, this is only the first step. In order to completely cut off the traceability chain of fund flow, Feng's gang adopted a more secretive "mixing" method, which confuses the cryptocurrency transaction path through technical means to achieve "privacy" protection. Through 'mixing coins', Feng further confused the sources, types, and circulation chains of virtual currencies. In the end, some of the involved funds that were 'whitewashed' were exchanged back into RMB through secret channels and flowed into personal or company accounts actually controlled by core members such as Feng, Tang, and Yang. A "money laundering chain" that utilizes high-tech means and crosses borders has thus completed a closed loop. Li Tao, a prosecutor from the Science and Technology Crime Prosecution Team of Haidian District People's Procuratorate, quickly built a "three in one" evidence system of information flow, data flow, and fund flow based on the electronic data review room. This not only confirmed the authenticity and credibility of each other's evidence, but also fully presented the "crime maze" constructed by Feng, clearly reproducing the entire process of 140 million yuan of funds being embezzled, transferred, cleaned, and divided. It was in the face of such ironclad evidence that Feng's gang had to surrender over 90 hidden bitcoins, allowing the company to recover some of its losses. In the end, Feng and seven others were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 14 years and 6 months to 3 years by the Haidian District People's Court for the crime of embezzlement, and were also fined accordingly. The verdict has now come into effect. The three significant characteristics of this case are the prevention of the expansion of commercial corruption risks, the upgrading of means, the widespread corruption of small officials, virtual currency money laundering, and weak awareness of enterprise risk management. ”In Li Tao's view, current commercial corruption is constantly "evolving", from unconscious crimes in the past to now often being premeditated, coordinated, and having "offensive and defensive alliances" afterwards, and then to using virtual currency to launder money as a complete counter investigation strategy. In addition, some companies often focus on development strategies and have highly centralized power in the hands of managers responsible for specific businesses, resulting in a short approval chain and expanding the risk of commercial corruption. In the past five years, the number of commercial corruption cases we have handled has been on the rise. On the one hand, the increase in the number of cases is closely related to enterprises gradually realizing the importance of combating commercial corruption and increasing internal anti-corruption efforts; On the other hand, it also indicates the increasing necessity and urgency of combating commercial corruption. ”Sun Peng, Director of the Second Procuratorial Department of Haidian District People's Procuratorate, introduced that especially with the booming development of digital economy and platform economy, the business management mode of enterprises has changed, and commercial corruption has also shown a trend of "means upgrading". The operation link has become a frequent and high incidence link of commercial corruption crimes in the Internet industry due to its involvement in many aspects such as diversion and promotion, user growth, data analysis, market research, etc. In terms of criminal scenarios, "traffic monetization" and "data rights" in the e-commerce field have gradually become new scenes of commercial corruption. E-commerce operation services involve the allocation and management of platform resources, such as the setting of recommended positions on live streaming platforms and store rankings on e-commerce platforms. There is room for rent-seeking in terms of store introduction, resource allocation, and violation control and evaluation. These commercial corrupt practices not only distort the fair competition order in the market and harm the legitimate interests of enterprises, but also harm innovation and creativity. ”Jiang Shuzhen, Secretary of the Party Group and Prosecutor General of Haidian District People's Procuratorate, introduced that in recent years, on the one hand, Haidian District People's Procuratorate has severely punished commercial corruption crimes in accordance with the law, timely prosecuted the omissions and crimes found in the case, and accurately judged the legal supervision clues obtained from multiple channels; On the other hand, innovation has explored the mechanism of "dual reporting" for enterprises, with a pre legal supervision link, providing enterprises with reporting and applying for prosecutorial supervision intervention services. It has also launched a service enterprise exclusive platform - "Jianqi Zhiyuan" WeChat mini program, to implement prosecutorial suggestions and follow-up visits, actively working with other administrative and judicial organs to promote the construction of a diversified subject governance system. Be wary of the five main tricks of commercial corruption. Commercial corruption mainly refers to the behavior of enterprise related personnel using their positions to infringe on the interests of the enterprise. Their crimes are mainly divided into two categories: one is property infringement crimes, which generally involve charges such as embezzlement of duties and misappropriation of funds; The other type is crimes that disrupt the order of the socialist market economy, including both commercial bribery crimes and other crimes that infringe on the interests of companies and enterprises by taking advantage of their positions, involving charges such as bribery of non-state personnel and infringement of trade secrets. Commercial corruption cases mainly present the following five tricks: using inflated transaction links to achieve "empty handed catching of white wolves": the perpetrator uses their job responsibilities such as negotiating business, negotiating cooperation, signing agreements, and confirming transaction prices to artificially increase the company's procurement costs or reduce the company's sales profits through inflated intermediary links without authorization from the company. Refurbishment of false reporting of labor expenses, service fees, and other "empty pay" methods: With the increasing prevalence of labor outsourcing, labor dispatch, and other models in the employment field, there are more employment links, making it difficult to audit related expenses. Employers, labor dispatch companies, and others are prone to collude and exploit management loopholes to form commercial corruption risk points. Falsifying false identities such as "loans" and "dividends" in an attempt to disguise the transmission of benefits as legitimate: criminals intentionally mix power money transactions with ordinary civil acts. Some use the banner of private lending, while others mix it with commercial activities such as investment and cooperation, putting a market-oriented "vest" on the transmission of benefits and packaging illegal activities as "legal". Power rent-seeking is accompanied by technology information and data infringement crimes: In cases of trade secret infringement crimes, the involved personnel generally hold core technical or senior management positions and have access to the company's core technical or business information. Power rent-seeking often infringes on the company's trade secrets. The interweaving and compounding of commercial corruption crimes and tax related crimes: In the crime of embezzlement, criminals generally use fictitious contracts to embezzle company funds, and later take the funds returned to their personal accounts as their own. Commercial corruption crimes are often accompanied by tax related illegal activities. (New Society)