Study On The Crime Of Leading And Organizing The Pyramid Selling

Pyramid selling isn't a kind of operational activities but a fraud. The crime of leading and organizing pyramid selling activities was added to The Criminal Law Amendment7, which is a new legislative stage on pyramid selling and is meaningful in controlling the booming of it. Pyramid selling activities can be divided into fraud pyramid selling and multi-level marketing, and the criminal law is crack down on fraud pyramid selling. The criminal object is the order of the market economy, the property ownership and the social management order; and the objective aspects of the crime is leading and organizing pyramid selling activities. Pyramid selling activities are carried out by the organizations on a high-level phase; the subject of this crime is the leaders and organizers, which including natural person and units; the subjective aspect of this crime is direct intent and covered the aims of unlawful profit-making. The judicial practice must distinguish pyramid selling from multi-level marketing, and the later is not a crime. This crime belongs to consequential offence rather than behavioral offence. The consummated crime should be decided by the scope of fraud activities; this crime is a discretional joint offense, and there are principals and accessories between the leaders and organizers; the leaders and organizers could divide to principals and accessories, and they are not in relation to the participators. It's codes are commingled with the crime of fraud and the crime of illegal fund-raising, and there is joinder of punishments if unlawful detention or intentional injury took palace during pyramid selling. This crime also has many shortcomings, like that legal punishment of this crime is still too light;accessory penalties haven't set the provisions of confiscating property;the scope of the objective of crime is too small and so on. We can solve these cases by increasing the maximum statutory punishment, adding confiscation of property regulation, and adding new charges named introducing, luring, intimidating others attend pyramid selling activities.