A Study To The Crime Of Organizing And Leading Pyramid Scheme

The crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme as a new offense was put forward from the "Criminal Law Amendment (seven)" passed by the Seventh Meeting of the Eleventh National People’s Congress of Standing Committee in February28,2009.The birth of this offense makes the regulations to pyramid scheme activities in China from the level of administrative regulations rising to the level of criminal law,to achieve a legislative breakthrough to pyramid scheme in our country.The promulgation and implementation for the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme has been four years from now.In the past four years,the relevant provisions of this offense play a great role on regulating the pyramid scheme activities.However,due to the limited time on its legislation and there are still some academic controversies in theory,thereby it exists some problems in practice.particularly reflect to its judicial cognizance and its prosecution standards and sentencing criterion.In view of these reasons,the author considers it is very necessary to make an analysis for this offense’s judicial cognizance and its prosecution standards and sentencing criterion.In addition,Guangxi,as the most severe area,hit by pyramid scheme,and it is worth to being much attention and thinking over why the pyramid scheme in Guangxi is not extinguished when repeatedly prohibiting. In this paper,the author first uses the literature research method and the results of previous studies,to make an introduction to the birth of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme and its relevant theories,and find out the existing problem to this offense’s judicial cognizance and its prosecution standards and sentencing criterion in present judicial practice in China,and then to point out some ideas for improving them.Secondly,by researching the pyramid scheme’s history and characters in Guangxi,analyzing the prevalent reasons to pyramid scheme in Guangxi,and then combine with the relevant provisions of this offense,to give some suggestions on punishing the crime of pyramid scheme in Guangxi.This paper is divided into five chapters,and the contents as follow:Chapter one is about the overview of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme.In this chapter,the author first outlines the definition and characteristics of pyramid scheme, introduces the regulations and laws of prohibiting pyramid scheme in China and its criticism for these regulations and laws (briefly introduce and criticize the foreign（overrseas） regulations and laws on pyramid scheme),analyzes the reasons of the birth of this offense and its significance.And then analyzing the four elements of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme according to the contents of "Criminal Law Amendment (seven)".Chapter two describes the judicial cognizance of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme.The author mainly discusses it from the following three aspects:the distinction between pyramid scheme and direct selling,clarify whether it is necessary to prove the crime of illegally possessing others’property,the demarcation of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme and the crime of illegal business,and with cases to discuss it in details.Chapter three analyzes to the prosecution standards and sentencing criterion of the crime of organizing and leading pyramid scheme.In this chapter,it mainly analyzes this offense’s prosecution standards and its sentencing criterion with its key factors by studying relevant legal documents,and then make several suggestions to the existing problems from the relevant regulations and laws.Chapter four aims at analyzing the overview of crime of pyramid scheme in Guangxi.In this chapter,the author first review the history of pyramid scheme in Guangxi,and briefly introduce the current situation and characteristic in Guangxi,and then analyze the situation of punishing the pyramid scheme from the angles of law enforcement and criminal judicial with data,to summarize the significance of punishing the crime of pyramid scheme to Guangxi..Chapter five first points out the reasons of rampant and repeated pyramid scheme existing in Guangxi from the angles of legal and policy,and then provides some suggestions on cracking down and punishing the crime of pyramid scheme to the government,and judicial organ and social community.