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Titanium Media Note: This article comes from the WeChat public account Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine (id: iceo-com-cn), author | Tao Tao, editor | Li Wei, Titanium Media is authorized to publish.
film and television investment fraud has new victims.
Recently, movies starring many celebrities have been involved in film and television investment fraud cases, which has attracted attention. On January 16, the Lanzhou Municipal People's Procuratorate and the Lanzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau jointly issued a notice to publicly collect clues on the "8Ā·17" film and television investment fraud cases.
A total of 4 film and television media companies were involved in this case, involving a total of 12 movies: Beijing Eight Millimeters Culture Media Co., Ltd., Zhongrui Taifeng (Beijing) Culture Media Co., Ltd., Beijing China Film Xinyi International Film and Television Culture Media Co., Ltd., Beijing McFengshi Culture Media Co., Ltd.; as well as the movies "The Van Gogh Project", "The Monkey King: The Sky-Eating Monkey", "Mailu Man", "Rescue from the Raging Sea", "Poet", "Desperate Rescue", "Ruffian Lover", etc.
Source: Lanzhou Public Security Weibo
The Judgment Document Network shows that an individual investor "invested" 1.1 million yuan in the movie "Mai Luren" starring Aaron Kwok and Miriam Yeung. In the end, he only recovered more than 40,000 yuan, and lost more than 1 million yuan. Yuan. In addition, there are hundreds of investors whose investments of 50,000 to 100,000 yuan have been wasted.
In an interview with the media, the police revealed that there were more than 2,100 victims in the case, and the amount involved has now reached more than 700 million yuan. In these cases, due to investors' lack of legal awareness and lack of evidence retained during the investment process, most of them failed to recover the money.
In fact, film and television investment fraud has a long history. Especially 10 years ago, when outsiders entered the film and television industry on a large scale and used retail investorsā film and television investment funds to accumulate original capital for the companyās other businessesāthe Internet and finance. Film and television investment has experienced thunderstorms several times. "Bombing" starring Fan Bingbing, which was launched in 2016, is one example. defrauded tens of thousands of individual investors out of tens of billions of dollars.
Therefore, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has introduced restrictive measures on cross-border film and television investment. At the same time, film and television projects have been generally delayed in the past two years. Most of the companies that want to move in and out quickly in the film and television field have been put behind bars. The living space of large opportunistic listed companies in the field of film and television investment has become smaller and smaller.
However, news that co-producers defraud retail investors of their money by selling their film and television investment shares at premium prices is still frequently reported. "Beware of film and television projects that are disguised as low-risk and high-yield and endorsed by stars." Tang Ye, a senior film and television producer at , suggested, "After all, the logic of high returns and guaranteed profits does not apply to investment." Not true." The fraud scenes of
film and television investment have common routines.
"Common channels for film and television investment deception include various private channels, such as WeChat groups, QQ groups and other social software. These private channels cannot directly connect with producers and pose higher risks to lay investors." Jingshi Law Firm Lawyer Li Ce said that she was one of the persons in charge of the investment fraud case for the film "Monkey King: The Monkey King" mentioned above.
Another scenario is to use small profits to catch big fish, targeting people with weak information screening ability. Fang Zinan, a lawyer at Global Jingwei, said that one of the cases he had handled involved defrauding the elderly of a large amount of investment funds by brainwashing the group members during a low-price tour group trip.
Since film and television investment has a high entry threshold, many industry insiders have suggested that ordinary investors should not invest in this field. If you try, you need to verify the comprehensive information of the film and television drama, including the filing status of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the producer and filming progress, whether the project has public fundraising, whether the producer is involved in litigation, etc., so as to evaluate the authenticity of the fundraising project The ability to fulfill contracts with the producer.
Deep fraud routines
There are two core modes of film and television investment fraud: one is to not obtain a share of film investment, but falsely claims to be a popular movie producer or co-producer, and sells a false share of the income rights; the second is to purchase A small number of movie shares are resold privately at a premium or in excess of the amount signed by the producer without complying with the agreement signed with the producer.
Since the first type is easier to verify, most fraud patterns fall into the second type. The movie "Bombing" project established in 2016 is one of the typical cases of reselling shares at a premium.
It is reported that the investor of "The Big Bomb" belongs to Kuailu Group. The parent company of Kuailu Group is Hehe Film and Television, and its boss Shi Jianxiang is associated with hundreds of Internet, financial and film and television-related companies.
"The Kuailu Group's fraud method, , is actually to exaggerate the cost of film and television production in the name of film and television fund-raising, and put the huge sums of money raised for film and television investment into the Internet financial capital pool for operation. Film and television is just a cover for them. " Tang Ye said.
At that time, Julu Group claimed that "Bombing" cost 750 million yuan. However, in the fall of 2010, when "Bombing" director Xiao Feng first took over the film, the budget was only 80 million yuan. Therefore, in the eyes of many industry insiders, the investment amount for this film has been exaggerated.
Whatās even more ridiculous is that the film was ultimately exposed to have raised as much as 15 billion yuan in external funds, involving more than 10,000 investors, which was far higher than the expected production cost of "The Big Bang". Xiao Feng even revealed after finishing the film that he often lacked funds for filming on the crew. Therefore, he finally sold his house and only had 1,500 yuan left to finish the film. It can be seen that out of the 15 billion yuan, the funds needed by the crew may not be earmarked. The hidden aspect of the
"Bombing" fraud case for individual investors is that the Julu Group that committed the fraud is indeed the main prosecutor, and the project is endorsed by celebrities, making it difficult for ordinary investors to identify.
The explosive influence of the "Bombing" case has aroused dual attention from the film and television industry and the securities regulatory market.
In October 2018, in order to guide listed companies to reasonably determine the investment direction of raised funds and prevent the investment of raised funds from "disappearing from reality to fictitious", the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued relevant documents and made relevant regulations on the funds raised by listed companies, which mentioned that the company's fund-raising "It should serve the real economy, comply with national industrial policies, and be mainly invested in the main business. In principle, funds raised by are not allowed to invest in film and television or games across borders.
With the optimization of relevant systems, the living space of cross-border companies in the field of film and television is gradually increasing Narrowed.
Li Ce said that at the same time, from 2021 to 2022, due to the rapid inflow and outflow of funds in the film and television industry, affected by factors such as production crew suspensions and project delays, non-standard companies are on the verge of death, and there is a bubble in the industry. Being squeezed out, the film and television investment cases she handled have shown a downward trend in the past three years.
However, the co-producers of film and television projects, that is, small film and television companies, still engage in fund-raising fraud in order to circulate funds or simply to make money. situation. The specific method of deception is also to exaggerate the investment amount, or resell in excess.
Ms. Lin, who lost 110,000 yuan in the investment in "Detective Chinatown 3" told "Chinese Entrepreneur" that the defendant was to transfer the share The excess was resold to her.
In 2019 and 2020, Ms. Lin entered into cooperation with Newmoben (Beijing) Entertainment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Newmoben") and Shanghai Haoyu Culture Media Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Haoyu Media") respectively. ") signed an investment agreement, but did not give Ms. Lin corresponding remuneration within the agreed time frame. In this regard, the reason given by Newmore was that the producer did not make a timely subscription with them and therefore could not pay the remuneration. .After the film was released, Haoyu Media was not included in the official production list.
Later, Ms. Lin learned that Newmoney actually only purchased 10,000 copies of "Detective Chinatown 3". shares, but transferred 50,000 shares to the outside world, falsely advertising the proportion held by each of their investors. It can be seen that the company's initial behavior was to maliciously collect money, and Ms. Lin reported the case. In the end, she recovered the investment funds and profits Return.
The confusing aspect of this case also lies in the verifiability of the producer. Ms. Lin specifically mentioned that before the release, both Newmoben and Haoyu Culture were among the producers of the official platform. , "It's unclear why the latter disappeared later."
Producer of "Detective Chinatown 3".Source: Screenshot of Maoyan Movie Professional Edition
"Chinese Entrepreneur" inquired about the two companies involved and found that Newmoben has no connection with Haoyu Culture. However, according to reports from Entertainment Capital, in the production agreement for "Detective Chinatown 3", the contract signed between Newmore and individual investors involved not only Newmore and Haoyu Culture, but also "Genesis" , Genesis and Newmore are registered in the same place, and employees even said that the two companies are one.
In other words, when the producer wants to defraud investors of their funds, they may set up a new company shell to eliminate the responsibility of the main operating company as much as possible. Therefore, in the official product list, it is possible that the actual producer has not changed, but the display has changed.
Hold your wallet
The above cases show how deep the water of film and television investment is for ordinary investors. Therefore, most veterans in the film and television industry do not recommend that lay investors easily enter the game.
However, investing in the film and television field based on individual investors is not only legal and compliant, but also encouraged by the state. The "Film Industry Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China" promulgated in March 2017 clearly stipulates that the state encourages enterprises, institutions, social organizations and individuals to participate in film production through funding or investment. For investors who have investment experience and want to try this field, it is more important to beware of related risks.
Judging from the authenticity of the project itself, lawyer Fang Zinan said that investors can check whether the project is online through a platform with certain credibility, such as the filing status of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
From the perspective of the types of investment risks in film and television projects, a film and television investment analyst told "Chinese Entrepreneur" that when investing in specific cultural products, you need to remember the "two no-investments":
First, there are policies for not investing. Risks, review risk projects. movies and TV series must be reviewed by the Radio, Film and Television Bureau before they are released. They need to be modified before they are approved. They can be released only after passing. If there are policy risks involved, it will extend the investor's return period. For example, if you do not invest in "Elf and Ghost" movies and TV series, this will Such works are currently prohibited.
Secondly, do not cast projects with bad actors. Before investing in , you can have a basic understanding of the social image of the main creative personnel. Works starring actors with a negative social image are likely to be banned, and investors may lose their money. The inspection and screening of
producers will be more complicated. Lawyer Li Ce suggested that investors should conduct a detailed investigation and verification of the film rights holder before investing to determine whether the corporate entity contracted with them is the actual rights holder of the film involved. Investors can inquire through the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, or proactively contact the actual producers and producers of the film to verify whether the crowdfunding of the film involved or the transfer of film copyright rights is true. After the identity of the
producer is confirmed, Fang Zinan also reminded that investors can also inquire about the producer's litigation, implementation status or other risk information, and comprehensively assess project risks and the producer's ability to perform the contract.
For investors, they need to continue to be vigilant during the transaction process. Lawyer Li Ce said that the formal payment account of the producer will be the company's public account, not a private account, which is one of the core judgment criteria.
However, even so, there are still many risks in film and television investment that are difficult to avoid.
Fang Zinan specifically mentioned: "If there is a film and television investment fraud, generally the contract entities, promotion and sales entities, and payment entities involved in the entire process have been isolated, or simply by forging official seals and impersonating the entities, so Keeping transaction documents and transfer records may only serve the purpose of registering the identity of the victim and the amount involved."
In addition, film and television investment fraud also faces great difficulties in law enforcement. Feedback from front-line police: "This is a typical fraud, but it involves too many people and the scope is too wide. The criminals have taken sufficient concealment measures. Many companies' projects are mixed with real and fake ones, making it difficult to deal with. Once there are not enough people to report a crime, it will be difficult to escalate it to a criminal case and it can only be treated as a civil dispute."
Therefore, retail investors must beware of being cut off when investing in film and television.
