International trade fraud

International trade fraud usually refers to the behavior of one party in the process of international trade in goods, shipping, insurance and settlement, making use of the mistakes of international trade rules, deliberately fabricating false information or deliberately concealing the true situation, and cheating the other party’s goods, money or ships by illegal means.

According to the main process of import and export business, international trade fraud can be divided into the following aspects:

1. International Maritime Fraud

（1） Forged bill of lading. Bill of lading is one of the important documents in international trade and international payment. It is an important document of title in maritime transportation. Therefore, some foreign illegal businessmen forge bills of lading to cheat.

（2） Using illegal bill of lading. It is mainly through the pre borrowed bill of lading, the counter signed bill of lading or the letter of guarantee in exchange for the clean bill of lading.

Advance bill of lading refers to the bill of lading issued by the carrier in advance at the request of the shipper when the sea cargo has not been loaded or has not been loaded at all; Backdated bill of lading is a bill of lading signed by the carrier on the date of shipment required by the L / C in order not to affect the settlement of foreign exchange because the actual date of shipment of the goods is later than the date specified in the L / C; When the shipper delivers the goods to the carrier with bad main marks, pieces or appearance, the shipper shall issue a letter of guarantee and the carrier shall issue a clean bill of lading to facilitate the smooth settlement of foreign exchange. This is to exchange the letter of guarantee for a clean bill of lading. The above three acts are all illegal acts of the carrier and the shipper conspiring to cheat the third party.

（3） Insurance fraud. The main reason is that the ship and the shipper (the seller) deliberately damage the ship and cargo in order to obtain high insurance premium.

For international shipping fraud, our foreign trade enterprises should understand the credit status and strength of the shipping company in many ways when negotiating with foreign businessmen, or directly require the foreign party to hire a reputable and powerful shipping company familiar to us to carry goods. In addition, it is better for us to adopt FOB method when importing goods and CIF or CFR method when exporting goods. Import at FOB price. The importing party can own the chartering and booking space. The seller must ship the goods in accordance with our instructions. The carrier shall accept the seller’s goods in accordance with the name, quantity, quality, number of pieces, time of shipment and port of loading and unloading in the transport contract signed with us. The carrier shall issue the bill of lading only if the requirements of the contract are met. Our exporters should try their best to export by CIF or CFR, and arrange shipping companies we know to transport goods, so as to prevent the occurrence of maritime fraud.

2.International trade contract subject fraud

（1） Fictitious contract subject frauSome illegal international “businessmen” fabricated nonexistent corporate entities or pretended that they were not qualified to trade to cheat when concluding contracts. The companies engaged in import and export trade represented by these people are not independent legal persons or commercial firms without legal personality and registered capital at all. They fabricated false company names, made false personal business cards to negotiate with foreign trade enterprises in China, and fled after defrauding goods or money; Or these people are middlemen who can only provide the company name, personal business card and contact number without the qualification to sign trade contracts. Most of them come from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places. Because they are familiar with the situation in mainland China, they can attract some businesses and link them with each other and collect commissions. However, they can not engage in direct goods trading.

Fraud by using the status of an independent registered subsidiary with legal personality. The parent company of this seed company is well-known and has abundant capital, while the capital of the subsidiary company is likely to be pitiful. Therefore, it uses the signboard of the parent company to solicit large amount of business, which exceeds its own payment capacity. It is also registered independently and has legal person qualification, and is relatively independent from the parent company in terms of finance. Therefore, if there is any risk during the performance of the contract, our foreign trade enterprises will suffer great losses.

（2） Fraud in changing contract subject

After a foreign company signed a contract with a foreign trade enterprise in China, during the performance process, the foreign party fabricated an excuse that it could not perform the contract, proposed to our foreign trade company more favorable performance conditions than the original contract and suggested that another foreign company perform the contract on behalf of it. Under the attraction of such preferential conditions, our foreign trade company has not conducted in-depth investigation and understanding on the credit and other conditions of the foreign party performing the contract on its behalf. It is easy to be deceived by agreeing to perform the contract on its behalf without knowing its details.

（3） Limited liability fraud

Most commercial entities engaged in international trade activities are limited liability companies. The main legal characteristic of a limited liability company is that the company undertakes limited liability to the extent of its registered capital. Therefore, some international trade fraudsters register a limited liability company with very low capital, contact customers extensively, place large orders on the premise of exceeding their own ability to pay, sign a contract or issue a letter of guarantee in a legal form, and promise to pay the goods within a certain period. Finally, even if the court orders the payment, they will only bear a very small amount of registered capital according to the legal provisions of the limited liability company, And the supplier suffered heavy losses.

And the overseas organizations of friendly companies and the yellow pages of enterprises published abroad.

3.International trade settlement fraud

（1） Forge and open letters of credit. The main reason is that foreign buyers colluded with some unknown and reputable small banks to open fake letters of credit to our export company to defraud our shipment of goods. After they obtained the bill of lading through the “issuing bank”, they did not pay and fled.

（2） Letter of credit with “soft terms”. Some importers often require the bank to add some “soft clauses” in the letter of credit that are difficult for the exporter to detect or meet to increase the risk of the exporter, so as to put themselves in a favorable position and require our exporter to reduce the price of the goods.