Cctv news(Focus Interview): In recent years, in order to realize the strategy of containing and suppressing China, some western countries have become increasingly rampant in stealing intelligence information in key areas such as military industry, economy and finance. The state security organs have investigated many projects and found that many overseas institutions with complex backgrounds steal state secrets and intelligence in key areas of our country with the help of domestic consulting companies and other industries in order to evade China’s laws and regulations and the supervision of key sensitive industries and conceal and weaken the overseas background. Some domestic consulting companies have a weak sense of national security, and in order to gain economic benefits, they frequently wander on the edge of the law.
Recently, the state security organs, together with relevant departments, publicly enforced the law on Kaisheng Rongying Information Technology Co., Ltd., a leading enterprise in the domestic consulting industry.
Police officer of Shanghai National Security Bureau: "Kaisheng Rongying Information Technology Co., Ltd. has more than 1,000 customers all over the country and abroad. The business is divided into three parts, of which expert interviews account for 80% of Kaisheng Rongying’s total business, and expert interviews are mainly in the form of expert telephone interviews. "
In Kaisheng Rongying Company, there is a huge expert database with more than 300,000 experts in the database. Since the company’s business involves overseas consultation, what is the source of experts for consultation? Is there any taboo in the choice of experts?
Zhou Moumou, a staff member of Kaisheng Rongying Information Technology Co., Ltd.: "There are also many public resume channels that can be found outside, or they are recommended by experts."
In fact, the source of experts is not as simple as they say. In practical work, the company’s staff also select influential experts in key areas and important industries such as domestic policy research, national defense and military industry, finance and currency, high and new technology, energy resources, medicine and health.
Police officer of Shanghai National Security Bureau: "Kaisheng Rongying Company and every interviewed expert will sign a document containing ‘ Exemption clause ’ The business contract requires the experts to fulfill their confidentiality responsibilities and bear the legal consequences themselves. Relevant experts were attracted by the rich remuneration offered by the consulting company, and thought that the other party was a law-abiding and standardized enterprise, and then relaxed their vigilance, leaked internal sensitive content and even state secrets and intelligence in foreign-related consultations, and embarked on the road of illegal crimes. "
Han Moumou, a senior researcher of a large state-owned enterprise in China, was sentenced to 6 years in prison for stealing, spying and illegally providing state secrets and intelligence abroad.
Han’s position in the unit is classified. According to the requirements of the unit, he can’t work part-time outside. However, in 2015, at the invitation of Kaisheng Rongying, Han became an expert here and was consulted. In the third consultation, Han’s bottom line of confidentiality was challenged.
Han Moumou: "When consulting, it involves the cost of the product, the profit rate of the product, and the total profit of the product. During the consulting process, I said that this involves trade secrets and I don’t want to provide it."
When the customer asked for sensitive content, Han refused directly, but the customer’s feedback immediately went to Kaisheng Rongying. Han Moumou soon received a phone call from the staff of Kaisheng Rongying.
Han moumou: "call me and say that as long as you answer the form they provided me, you can pay twice the consulting fee."
In the process of consulting Han Moumou, the staff of Kaisheng Rongying not only failed to remind the experts to pay attention to confidentiality, but also helped the customers to persuade the experts to disclose the information in order to facilitate the consultation when the customers had improper requirements. The work of the state security organs found that within Kaisheng Rongying, luring experts to answer sensitive questions by increasing remuneration is only one of the means of this company.
Police officer of Shanghai National Security Bureau: "In order to meet the needs of customers, Kaisheng Rongying Company, even for some consulting projects involving sensitive fields such as national defense, military industry and cutting-edge technology, the responsible project manager will send e-mails within the company to mobilize everyone to make more calls around military enterprises and secret scientific research units, and contact experts who lobby to grasp the relevant internal situation for consultation. The company also told experts that they can use examples, metaphors and other alternative methods, ‘ Side ’ Answer sensitive questions. "
For a long time, in order to earn economic benefits, Kaisheng Rongying Company not only encouraged experts in key fields to divulge secrets in consultation, but also, as a company with a large number of overseas consulting businesses, Kaisheng Rongying never let experts clearly grasp the true identity of consultants under the banner of protecting customers’ privacy.
Although Han had agreed to do consulting for Kaisheng Rongying, he particularly emphasized that he would not do overseas consulting. At this request of Han Moumou, Kaisheng Rongying Company did not keep its promise. By chance, Han Moumou discovered that his long-term consulting customers were overseas customers.
Under the persuasion of Kaisheng Rongying staff, Han Moumou became more and more bold. In a few years, Han Moumou received more than 100 consultations in Kaisheng Rongying, including more than 60% overseas consultations. In the meantime, in order to obtain more consulting fees in Kaisheng Rongying Company, Han Moumou also downloaded confidential information from the intranet of the company several times.
Police officer of the National Security Bureau of Zhuzhou City: "He stole nearly 5,000 documents through the company’s intranet download. After identification by the state secrecy department, Han Moumou stole and illegally provided 1 confidential state secret, 2 confidential state secrets, 13 intelligence and 18 business secrets for overseas."
As a leading enterprise in the domestic consulting industry, Kaisheng Rongying has a legal department in its daily operation. According to the company’s declared workflow, when a customer makes a consultation, he first submits an outline of the consultation content to the company, and then the legal department checks whether the content consulted is sensitive and compliant. For sensitive questions, he directly rejects them, and the insensitive questions are handed over to the staff, who searches for experts in the expert database according to the questions. After the selected experts are approved by the customer, both parties can consult. So in actual work, has the legal department played its due role?
Zhao, a staff member of Kaisheng Rongying Information Technology Co., Ltd.: "There are indeed many demands. We don’t let the legal affairs go to every item. Some of us make some judgments artificially, which are basically judged by the project manager himself."
Although Kaisheng Rongying has a compliance team and a risk specialist, in actual consultation, the check is a mere formality.
Police officer of Shanghai National Security Bureau: "Kaisheng Rongying Company has no relevant management requirements and compliance audit for safeguarding national security obligations and preventing security risks. Whether the specific projects proposed by overseas customers may be sensitive and confidential, or even suspected of collecting intelligence, is entirely up to employees’ personal judgment, and the company’s legal affairs and executives will not take the initiative to ask and supervise. In fact, no one cares and only pursue economic interests."
In the process of profit-seeking, Kaisheng Rongying Company also asked some experts who are not suitable for consultation at the request of some work units to take "pseudonyms" for consultation and use other people’s bank accounts to receive remuneration. It is obvious that Kaisheng Rongying puts economic interests above the responsibility of safeguarding national security, but the relevant staff of the company insist that they have specific projects to do for consulting overseas companies. In fact, in Kaisheng Rongying’s expert database, there are thousands of experts only involved in the field of national defense and military industry. In overseas consultation, the company has not done anything to avoid these experts.
Lei Moumou, who once worked in a key military enterprise in China, was suspected of illegally providing state secrets for overseas because he leaked sensitive information in the military field. Lei worked in a postdoctoral station jointly organized by a university and a key military enterprise. In March 2020, Lei Moumou left the post-doctoral station. In his resume written online, he gave a detailed description of his work experience in key military enterprises, which enabled him to successfully enter the vision of Kaisheng Rongying Company and become a consulting expert here.
After becoming a consulting expert of Kaisheng Rongying, Lei received several consultations one after another. This time in July 2020, there was something unusual. For a long time, Kaisheng Rongying Company has advertised that it only introduces experts to customers and does not participate in the specific consultation process between customers and experts in order to evade its regulatory obligations legally. According to the previous operation, the customer’s consultation must be conducted on Kaisheng Rongying’s telephone platform. Before this consultation, Lei Moumou was told by Kaisheng Rongying Company that at the request of the customer, this consultation will be replaced by other teleconference platforms, and Kaisheng Rongying’s people will not participate in the whole process. The abnormal behavior of the company did not alert Lei Moumou, but the questions thrown by customers have impressed him so far.
Lei Moumou: "I asked about the number of military aircraft models."
For such a sensitive issue, Lei Moumou did not evade, but was lucky and tried to show off, and finally revealed a lot of sensitive information to the other party.
Appraised by the state secrecy department, Lei provided the other party with three confidential state secrets and three confidential state secrets. According to the investigation of the state security organs, Kaisheng Rongying Company has accepted a large number of consulting projects from overseas companies in sensitive industries, some of which have close ties with foreign governments, military and intelligence agencies. From 2017 to 2020 alone, Kaisheng Rongying received more than 2,000 remittances from hundreds of overseas companies, amounting to more than 70 million US dollars. Recently, the state security organs have dealt with the enterprises involved in accordance with the law and regulations, and those suspected of violating the law and committing crimes will be investigated to the end to trace their legal responsibilities.
National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation, which concerns the fundamental interests of the country and the well-being of the people. In order to occupy the market, seek benefits, ignore national security risks, carefully select and lure experts and scholars in sensitive industries in key areas to provide internal confidential information, which has caused great harm to China’s industrial development and economic security, and eventually became accomplices in spying, buying and obtaining state secrets and information from abroad. The state supports the development of consulting industry and encourages it to carry out international trade. It is hoped that consulting enterprises will strictly implement the responsibility of auditing and checking when conducting business, experts and scholars will earnestly fulfill their obligations of security and confidentiality when receiving consultation, and relevant units will strengthen supervision and management over internal personnel’s consultation, jointly safeguard national security and development interests, and ensure the new development pattern with the new security pattern.