Allen
- Jul 22, 2022
- 5 min read

When You Were Cheated By The Chinese, But The Chinese Police Delay Or Refuse To File A Case

What Can You Do?

Liars are everywhere, especially in commercial trade. In your international trade with Chinese company, or in other business you deal with Chinese, you may unfortunately be cheated.

In order to recover the cheated property and punish the cheaters, you may choose to file a lawsuit in Chinese courts. But according to Chinese laws, if you sue, you first need to know the defendant's name, address and other identity information.

Since the cheaters are very cunning, after being cheated, it is usually difficult to contact them and find out where they are, and the identity information they provided you in the transaction is usually false.

Therefore, compared with going to the Chinese court to file a lawsuit, reporting the case to the Chinese police may usually be a better way.

However, since the transnational fraud is relatively difficult to investigate, the police are usually unlikely to file a case directly to deal with it. And if your case is very complex, for example, the cheaters forged a lot of fake documents and information, and their whereabouts are unknown, some police may delay the filing of the case, because it is difficult for them to arrest the criminal suspect in such cases, finding the criminal suspect will take them a lot of time.

So the police may not formally file the case for a long time after your report, nor issue you relevant notices or documents, even if the evidence you submit is sufficient to prove the fraud by cheaters.

There is no doubt that after being cheated out of money, it must be very anxious to wait for the police to start investigating and looking for the cheaters.Under such circumstances, is there any way to urge the police to file a case as soon as possible? Or is there any way to complain about the police on the grounds that they did not do their duty?

First of all, we need to be clear about the time limit for the police to file a case. According to the Provisions on Procedure of Public Security Organs in Handling Criminal Cases (公安机关办理刑事案件程序规定), after receiving the report of economic crime, the police should decide whether to file the case within seven days, if the case is serious and complex, for example, if the amount involved is huge, or if the case it is a transnational crime, the time limit for filing and examination can be extended to 30 days or 60 days after approval, depending on the judgment of the police and their superiors.

Because the police usually consider transnational fraud to be relatively complex, it is common that the filing period for such cases to be extended to 30 or even 60 days. And according to the law, if the police decide not to file a case, they should issue a written notice to the reporter within the prescribed filing period.

After a long wait of 30 or 60 days from the day you report to the police, if the police still do not issue a formal notice of filing a case to you, nor do they issue a written notice of decision not to file the case, but continue to delay, even if you have urged them many times, then you can try to complain to the regulator about their lack of duty.

The Rules of Criminal Procedure for People's Procuratorates (人民检察院刑事诉讼规则) and the Provisions on the Relevant Issues on the Supervision of Filing of Criminal Cases (最高人民检察院、公安部关于刑事立案监督有关问题的规定) stipulate that if the police fail to file a case or issue a notice of non filing within the legal time limit, the reporter can submit a complaint to the procuratorate, and also stipulate what the procuratorate should do after receiving the complaint:

1. If the police have not decided whether to file a case within the prescribed time limit, the procuratorate shall require the police to explain the reasons in writing within 7 days, and at the same time, the police shall submit the evidences of the case to the procuratorate.

2. If the police do not explain the reasons in writing or decide whether to file a case within 7 days after receiving the request from the procuratorate, the procuratorate shall issue corrective opinions to the police. And if the procuratorate finds out that the case meets the conditions for filing a case after reviewing the evidences, it shall notify the police to file the case.

3. If the police still fail to file the case or request reconsideration within 15 days after receiving the above notification from the procuratorate, the procuratorate shall issue a notice to the police to correct their violations. If the police still do not correct, the procuratorate shall report to the superior procuratorate and negotiate with the public security organ for handling.

However, the Chinese laws do not stipulate the time limit for the procuratorate to reply to the complainant after receiving the complaint, so after you submit a complaint to the procuratorate, you may need to wait for another period of time.

On the other hand, if the police do not delay the filing of the case, but directly issue a notice to you that they decide not to file the case, under such circumstances, what measures can be taken?

According to the Provisions on Procedure of Public Security Organs in Handling Criminal Cases (公安机关办理刑事案件程序规定), if the police issue you a decision not to file a case, within seven days after receiving this decision, you can apply to the police for reconsideration. And within 30 days after receiving your application for reconsideration, the police shall make a decision again on whether to file a case, and shall serve you with the written decision of reconsideration.

If the police still decide not to file a case after reconsideration, and you still disagree with the decision, within 7 days after receiving the reconsideration decision, you can apply to the superior public security organ for reconsideration. Within 30 days after receiving your application, the superior public security organ shall make a decision on whether to file a case.

If the public security organ still refuses to file a case after the above reconsideration, according to the PRC Criminal Procedure Law (中华人民共和国刑事诉讼法), you can sue directly in the Chinese procuratorate, apply for the procuratorate to file a case. Or you can also submit a complaint to the procuratorate, apply to the procuratorate for examination of the decision of the public security organ not to file a case, and this complaint procedure is the same as that you complained to the procuratorate when the police delayed filing a case.

The above are the measures you can take if the Chinese police delay or refuse to file a case after receiving your report, as well as the relevant laws and regulations. If you have any more related questions and want to know more details, please do not hesitate to contact our professional Chinese lawyers.