Yanping Liu, Minghai Tian, Yanming Shao: Cybercrimes and Financial Crimes in the Global Era

Along with the globalization of economy and information, the crime problem also presents a global trend (Aguilar-Millan et al. 2008), especially in terms of cybercrimes and financial crimes. The latest INTERPOL report says that cybercrimes and financial crimes are the top global police concerns. With the widespread use of the Internet and the proliferation of “financial innovation”, cybercrimes and financial crimes are gradually integrated. Some criminals use network technology to carry out various illegal and criminal activities under the banner of “financial innovation”, which poses a great challenge to global network security and financial security. Based on this, how to effectively combat cybercrime and financial crime in the context of globalization has become an urgent issue to be solved. The book “Cybercrime and Financial Crime in the Age of Globalization”, edited by Yanping Liu, Minghai Tian, and Yanming Shao, provides an in-depth discussion on this issue.

As the research result of the 10th International Forum on Crime and Criminal Law in the Era of Globalization, this book contains 21 papers by leading criminal law scholars from China, Russia, Spain, Serbia and other countries, and includes the resolutions of the conference and the discussions of the sub-forums. As the title suggests, the book mainly discusses the legislative regulation and international cooperation countermeasures of cybercrimes and financial crimes in the globalized information age, with a focus on the threats posed by and corresponding approaches to controlling financial crimes and cybercrimes.

The book is clearly laid out and structured, divided into four parts. The first part is the “Theme Report” (Chapters 1–3). In this part, Pino Arlacchi (Chapter 1) analyzes the reasons for the Rise of Financial Crimes and the Decline of Violent Crimes. He examines the economic, financial and political spheres and finds that financial crime is deeply related to political powers and that the high degree of financialization of capital (financial capitalism) has created a huge scope for illegal profits that are prone to wreak havoc on economies around the world. Moreover, he compares the differences between Asian economic development models and those of European and American countries. The synthesis concludes that countries should strengthen cooperation and work together to reform the global economic and financial systems, so that financial services can serve the real economy. Xinjiu Qu (Chapter 2) illustrates the key obstacles facing the criminal legislation to punish financial crimes in China and the world, combining the author’s personal observation and experience, as well as the materials and information of some legislative activities. First, the rapid development of Alipay, WeChat and third-party payment platforms has led to a decrease in counterfeiting, but the use of the digital currency such as Bitcoin may affect the country’s monetary system. Second, China’s financial instruments are less active and innovative due to a natural aversion to shorting mechanisms and instruments. Third, China’s protection of financial institutions is a bit too broad, and has not yet adjusted fully to the correction from unilateral protectionism to equal protectionism philosophy. Renwen Liu (Chapter 3) expressed his views on the criminal regulation of cybercrime in China and its international cooperation in light of the characteristics of the Internet age. Liu argues that the Internet has profoundly changed the world and the mechanism of crime regulation. The different social structure of the network predestines cybercrime to be different from real-world crime in terms of criminal legislation and prevention system development, and even criminal law interpretation poses challenges. Moreover, the network’s decentralized structure strengthened by its borderless nature and that the development of the cyber society has accelerated the global flow of crime, thus suggesting the rationalization of international and interregional cooperation to strengthen the prevention and control of cybercrimes. Both advance prevention and active measures to reduce opportunities or make criminal opportunities less attractive (Peng et al. 2021), and cross-border criminal justice collaboration should be strengthened to improve mechanisms for chasing, seizing, and returning assets overseas in order to more effectively combat network crimes.

The second part is “Cybercrime” (Chapters 4–12). This part consists of nine papers covering different countries and perspectives on the understanding of cybercrime and its globalization trends. In Chapter 4, Denis Puchkov discusses the main trends in the development of international crime from the perspective of the implementation of cyber technologies (p. 28). Puchkov points out that national cybersecurity, to a certain extent, depends now on the subjects operating in cyberspace as well as on their skills, aims and motives. On the one hand, cybercriminals are rapidly mastering their skills developing an enhanced capacity for undertaking organized attacks. Hacking attacks become more complex and professional. Cybercrime industrial chain is gradually revealed, criminal cooperation is industrially divided, criminal subjects are gradually diversified, and young people’s subculture emerges. Especially in the financial field, unit crimes are gradually increasing and criminal behavior is collectivized. On the other hand, with the further rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), globalization, fast accumulation of data and an increased use of different types of connected equipment to transfer data, anonymized and well-protected encryption systems, personal data, smart city technologies, cloud technologies, and cryptocurrencies have all become popular targets for hackers and even major targets for possible large-scale malicious attacks. Hence, there is a need to accelerate the identification of international cooperation in the fight against cybercrime, after all, criminal software is updated at an unimaginable rate.

In Chapter 5, Alfonso Galán Muñoz offers a fresh perspective: the criminal compliance of companies or legal persons. Many countries have laws that recognize the criminal liability of legal persons in an attempt to involve these entities in the prevention of crimes, develop compliance programs and reduce the risk of crime. But there are two sides to every coin. The union of the demand of an effective compliance program for the legal persons and the undefined, or the wrong definition of the allowed risk for this task could determinate an unacceptable limitation of some fundamental rights (p. 38), namely that there is a contradiction between the effectiveness of the measures and the violation of the fundamental rights of citizens. This issue is also considered in the subsequent Chapter 6 “Threats to Fundamental Rights in Cyberspace in the Age of Globalization”. Although the true transformative potential of the digital revolution is yet to be discovered and its implications transcend the merely technological, entering the very conformation of social models and relations and ethics (p. 41). Cybersecurity is an important element of national security. The vulnerability of cyberspace (its vulnerability is that of the infrastructures and essential services themselves) and the high-value nature of information and data privacy have elevated the priority of cybersecurity (Hu et al. 2021), and governments aspire to create a digital society based on trust. In this process, however, countries may seriously compromise human rights and pose a threat to the fundamental rights of citizens. Beyond the issue of the eternal struggle between security and freedom, Isabel Morón Pendás is also concerned that the versatility of cyberspace and its infinite possibilities for progress has as a counterpart the risk of its use for illicit purposes. So structural changes are needed, to introduce “light in digital architectures” (Katyal 2002) and “gas light and electricity in dark streets where crime proliferated”.

Chapter 7 describes the current state of the strategic and legal framework for combating cybercrime at the Council of Europe level will be presented, as well as the tendencies in the development of planned combating of these abuses. Miroslav Baljak argues that high-tech crime, as a transnational social phenomenon, must be designed with a protection regime based on internationally recognized standards that have produced positive results in practice. And the Council of Europe Convention on High-tech Crime and the Additional Protocol have had a particularly good exemplary effect in combating cybercrime and deepening international cooperation.

Chapters 8 and 9 interpret cyber threats and cybercrime in the Russian Federation from different horizons, respectively. In Chapter 8, Yulia V. Gracheva et al. analyze the spheres of life where digital transformation affects or will have the greatest impact, including social networks, e-Commerce, digital medicine, sharing economy, and Industry 4.0, illustrating both their advantages and features and revealing the risks and threats that the introduction of digital technologies may pose to individuals, society, and the state. They found that the path chosen by the domestic legislator to design the elements of crimes aimed at countering crimes in the information sphere will always suffer from delay, space and inability to cover all possible socially dangerous acts and their consequences (p. 67). Only a real-time review of criminal law policy and the development of a uniform formative approach can address the gap between legislation and practice. And in Chapter 9, A. I. Korobeev et al. provide an in-depth interpretation of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation from the criminological and criminal law perspectives. The entry of the Internet into Russia coincided with an era of uncontrolled freedom of expression and the deconstruction of the institutions that controlled the dissemination of information in society (p. 72). Cybercrimes grew rapidly due to the lack of relevant regulations and the popularity of the hacker subculture among the young population. Lawmakers subsequently amended the criminal code to address the challenges in the regulatory process. The Russian jurisprudence has noted cybercrime as a major threat to national security and social stability and has reviewed, the public danger of certain cybercrime offences for which criminal liability already existed. In addition, in this Chapter they mention the harm to public order of the widespread use of AI systems (Stover 2018), which can undermine the credibility of information and make it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

Unlike the previous two Chapters, Chapters 10, 11, and 12 explore cybercrime in China. Among them, Chapters 10 and 11 focus on the study of cyber economic crimes, while Chapter 12 focuses on the explanation of cyberterrorism crimes. In Chapter 10, Renwen Liu starts with a case, leading to the question of how to characterize the act of online fictitious transactions and whether it can be treated as a crime. By reviewing the changing times of the crime of disrupting production and business operations, Liu makes a study of the fate of the crime and the application of the law in the Network era. The legislative evolution from the crime of sabotaging collective production in the 1979 Criminal Law to the crime of sabotaging production and operation in the 1997 Criminal Law has led to a Controversy Over the Legal Interest. Liu holds that the legal interest of the crime of sabotaging production and operation should be the normal order of production and operation, including both the existing value of means of production per se, and the expectable property interests. In Chapter 11, Yanping Liu mainly analyzes the problems of Internet financial crimes and related countermeasures. Although Internet finance has brought many positive impacts to China’s society and economy, its development has also brought many collateral risks to the society. Among them, the most harmful is the Internet financial crime. The Internet financial crime is characterized by Diversified forms, newer crime methods, High-intelligence criminal methods, relatively high amount of money involved, specialized crime subjects, The trend of “three highs” among victims, more complex facts of cases, and more difficult to investigate. China’s current criminal law has basically met the needs of combating Internet financial crimes, but the relevant provisions may be too strict, therefore, in the criminal law response path must reasonably position the role of criminal law, improve the conviction standards of the corresponding crimes and play the guiding case guidance purposes. In Chapter 12, Zibo Zhao elaborates on the actual manifestations of cyberterrorism crimes, including the spread of terrorist information by the Internet, organizing terrorist activities online and terrorist attacks on the network, and also identifies the root cause lies in the widening gap between the rich and the poor caused by the unfair and irrational international political and economic order, and ethnic and religious conflicts (p. 109). To combat this threat, Zhao proposes effective preventive and control measures, namely, adopting confrontational and systematic countermeasures and forming a comprehensive system of prevention and control including legal measures and mechanism strategies of prevention and control.

The third part is “financial crimes” (Chapters 13–20). Though it varies over different legal systems, it does not affect the same objective phenomenon of financial criminals, that is the trend of globalization. The Chapters 13 and 15 introduce the Russian criminal policy in the field of financial crimes from the point of view of criminal liability and conceptual validity of the crime, respectively. In Chapter 13, Andrei Kudriavtsev confirms that the state is often forced to oscillate between two extremes when developing criminal-legal policy in the sphere of liability for financial crimes. Moreover, the fact that the financial crimes are becoming more complicated and could be remotely committed adds to the problems of correct regulation of liability for these crimes and ensuring effective struggle against them. Kudriavtsev thinks that international cooperation and a certain harmonization of national laws are indispensable in the future fight against financial crimes and closely related cybercrime, and even the effectiveness of the struggle will largely depend on the closeness of international cooperation. And in Chapter 15, N. A. Lopashenko analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the Russian legislation on criminal liability for legalization of property derived from crime (money laundering) by dealing with the relevance of the study of financial crimes, the difficulty of a single concept developing and a single crimes list infringing on financial relations. At the same time, the comparison of the effectiveness of the legalization of property obtained by criminal means (money laundering) and the criminal law aspects of counterfeiting currency illustrates the urgency of the research of criminal policy in the field of financial crimes and the necessity to learn from foreign experience.

Both Chapters 14 and 16 revolve around Spain and examine the criminal compliance of its legal persons in the financial sector, but with different emphases. Chapter 14 primarily addresses the criminal liability and criminal compliance of legal persons in the area of money laundering and terrorist financing. The emergence of economic crimes has changed the way criminal law is understood and the criminal liability of legal persons has emerged. Meanwhile, in order to control risks and mitigate or eliminate penalties, companies began to create a good compliance culture and a sound internal control framework. Juan Carlos Ferré Olivé maintains that all of this is forcing the creation of a new dogma that combines these new figures with renewed forms of crime that also appear in economic criminal law, in order to adapt to these newer features. Chapter 16 highlights the crime of money laundering, describing the expansion of the crime of money laundering in the cyber age and the importance of humanitarian principles in combating and preventing it. There is no doubt that the Internet has provided some convenience for money laundering. But developments in technology, including the Internet, can also provide a duty of identification or other oversight to prevent money laundering. Since its creation, the crime of money laundering has expanded in scope, even vaguely marginalizing those with less income and allowing control of the private sphere. However, human rights doctrine prohibits the control of citizens and the undermining of rule of law guarantees through terrorism and border controls as a pretext. In addition, Miguel Abel Souto critiques the Spanish system of criminal liability of legal persons in money laundering crimes.

Chapter 17 establishes a new direction of its future criminal law protection of the economy by discussing the amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia in 2016. Sreto Nogo analyzes the phenomenon of economic and financial crimes, the chronology of amendments to the Criminal Code and their nature in the period from 2006 to 2019, and finds two directions in which the legislature is revising. One is criminal law expansionism, by expanding the scope of criminal law to tighten of criminal law repression and the other is decriminalization reform, which develops the criminal law norm within the established standards to bring it closer to the reality. Legislative reform is often a double-edged sword, especially in the field of criminal law, where it is always difficult to properly anticipate the effects of the application of the law.

The last three Chapters in this part explore China’s practice in the field of financial crime from different areas and directions. Chapter 18 examines risks of Peer-to-Peer lending and prevention mechanism of risk input. Donglei Guo thinks that the reason why P2P is feasible and not in serious crisis in the UK and the US is closely related to its social role in the cultivation of P2P and the design of the financial regulatory system or risk prevention system (p. 195). China failed to deeply understand two essential features of internet fifinance: credibility as the fifirst and informativity as the second, so in the process of development, there are problems such as turning P2P lending into a speculative platform and a tool to obtain high rates of return. China should encourage financial innovation, set perfect rules and procedures for entry, merger, reorganization, and transfer, and establish an active, effective, and comprehensively three-dimensional supervision and management system and a Three-Dimensional credit system in China, so that P2P can truly become an inclusive financial service. In Chapter 19, based on the concept of “public places” and the objective understanding of “using information network”, Xiaoming Li and Jingxuan Li centered on the “virtual world” and “real society”, as well as the choice between penal positivism and penal passivism, carried out an in-depth discussion on Articles 1–5 of the Judicial Interpretation of “online Defamation” in China. They believe that judicial interpretation is a reasonable extension of legislation, rather than a “substitute” for legislation. The complexity of network legal issues and the characteristics of “cyberspace” different from “real society” make it necessary to adhere to a “passivism” view of criminal law in the interpretation of criminal law, hence “public order” stipulated in Articles 3 and 5 of the Interpretation is completely “serious public disorder” or “serious disorder in public places” in the real society caused by “using information networks as the tool”, the same as “Creating Disturbances”. And in Chapter 20, Yanping Liu focuses on the characteristics of financial crimes in China: diversified and relatively concentrated case types, high crime valuation, large number of victims, prominent Internet financial crimes, high proportion of crimes committed by financial professionals and joint crimes, constantly updated crime methods, and also present fraudulence, concealment, and internationalism. In the meantime, Liu also explores the causes of financial crimes from the perspectives of economy, legislation, criminal justice, financial supervision, criminals and victims. Finally, she considers that the prevention and control of financial crimes should adhere to the principle of comprehensive treatment, and follow the criminal policy of tempering justice with mercy, including perfecting the financial legislation, strengthening the function of criminal justice, promoting the reform of financial system, increasing financial supervision efficiency, constructing ethics in financial market, improving professional ethics of financial workers, enhancing consumers’ awareness of financial risk prevention and strengthening international cooperation, etc.

To sum up, the second and third parts have detailed discussions on the current situation, characteristics, causes, dynamics and prevention and control strategies of cybercrimes and financial crimes, as well as in-depth studies on the legal and regulatory framework, and international cooperation that govern these offenses, which have played a key role in shaping the content of the subsequent forum resolutions.

The fourth part is “Forum Resolution”, which was compiled and written by Yanming Shao. In this section, it mainly answers the general rules and framework resolution about cybercrime governance in the era of globalization. The participants agreed that the root of the fragmentation and difficulty in governance lies in all parties’ game of cyberspace governance rules’ formulation power and the cognitive difference of national sovereignty reflected in cyberspace. Forming a new consensus and mechanism requires long-term interaction between all parties and the construction of political wisdom. As a result, they suggest that in the era of globalization, the governance of cybercrimes should follow at least three general principles: 1) safeguarding basic human rights according to law; 2) effectively combating transnational cybercrime; and 3) respecting the cyber sovereignty and judicial sovereignty of each country. At the same time, based on the above principles, the basic framework of cybercrime governance in the global era should include improving the ability of law enforcement and investigation of cybercrime, strengthening public-private cooperation, expanding the jurisdiction of cybercrime and the application and access of electronic evidence.

In general, this book possesses high academic value and practical significance, and is extremely useful to students, scholars and practitioners engaged in criminology, international law, criminal law and criminal procedure law, cyber security law and other majors. By introducing the latest and most relevant research or investigation results in the field of cybercrime and financial crime in different countries, this book popularizes to readers the globalized features of cybercrime and financial crime as well as the new trends in the evolution of international crime with network technology and the latest financial instruments, which, among others, focuses on how to effectively combat international cybercrime and financial crime. The biggest and most important contribution of this book is its strong theoretical support for international cooperation in the global governance of cybercrime and financial crime. As also mentioned earlier, in today’s world, there is rapid innovation in information technology and cyberspace is both a convenient platform for transmitting or receiving information and a breeding ground for crimes (Wang et al. 2020). With the in-depth development in digitization, networkization, and intelligence, Cybercrimes and financial crimes have become more transnational, interconnected and diversified due to the unprecedented connection and interdependence among countries. Unprecedented connectivity and interdependence among countries have led to a rise in transnational, interconnected, and diverse cyber and financial crimes. Due to variations in communication technology, social development and cultural traditions, countries have not formed a uniform legal framework to adapt substantive and procedural rules to combat these two types of crimes. However, the historical trend of peace, development, cooperation and win-win situation are unstoppable. Upholding world peace and security and promoting global development and prosperity should be the common pursuit of all countries. Although the current international cooperation mechanism to combat cybercrime and financial crime is still unclear, this book quite constructively explores the future legal framework and procedures to combat cybercrime and financial crime. This lays the foundation for the subsequent international cooperation system, and is certainly conducive to promoting the development of domestic legislation and justice in various jurisdictions.