Never rent, lend, or sell your bank card, SIM, or payment account for someone else’s transactions
Renting, lending, or selling covered accounts or SIMs can itself breach China’s anti-fraud law. Illegal gains may be confiscated, with fines and potentially administrative detention, credit consequences, or restricted account functions. Knowingly helping online crime through payment transfers can constitute the crime of assisting information-network criminal activity, carrying up to three years. Money-mule work is not an ordinary part-time job.
What it takes
Nothing. Refuse offers such as “let me pass some money through your account and I will pay you a few hundred.”
What you may gain
Prohibited account and SIM transactions can lead to confiscation of gains and a fine of one to ten times those gains, or up to RMB 200,000 where there are no gains. Serious cases can bring up to 15 days’ administrative detention. Additional measures may include a credit record, account-function restrictions, and loss of non-counter banking services. Knowingly providing payment settlement or other assistance to online criminal activity in serious circumstances is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment or the other statutory custodial penalties, plus a fine.
Context & considerations
Saying “I did not know what they were doing” is not conclusive. Investigators assess knowledge from surrounding facts, including payment for the use of an account and obviously abnormal transaction patterns. Even without a criminal conviction, an account used to receive criminal proceeds may be frozen and its holder subject to restrictions.
Research & references
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (2022). Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law, Articles 31 and 44. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/202209/t20220902_575631.shtml; Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (2015). Criminal Law Amendment IX, Article 29, adding Article 287-2. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/201802/t20180205_364562.shtml.