A disciplinary notice published on August 7 by the Tianjin office of the National Financial Regulatory Administration has brought a long-running internal fraud case within the insurance industry back into the public spotlight. The ruling shows that PICC Health Insurance Company Limited (PICC Health) Tianjin Branch was fined 280,000 yuan for deceiving policyholders, while the core perpetrator, Wen Wei (formerly known as Wen Mou), has been permanently banned from the insurance sector.
Wen Wei's Four-Year Scam Against Insiders
PICC Health and PICC Property and Casualty (PICC P&C) are both subsidiaries of the People's Insurance Company of China (PICC) Group, maintaining frequent cross-sector business interactions at the grassroots level. Wen Wei, born in 1993, joined PICC Health Tianjin Branch in 2016 and served as an "interactive business specialist" liaising with PICC P&C Tianjin Jizhou sub-branch. On the corporate WeChat directory of the Jizhou sub-branch, Wen Wei's position and contact details were consistently visible, and due to regular business dealings, he was almost regarded as a "half-colleague" by PICC P&C staff. This overlapping identity allowed him to easily gain the deep trust of colleagues from the sister company.
From the perspective of the group's internal operations, Wen Wei's ability to extend his fraudulent activities to his daily colleagues stemmed from this natural business crossover and the resulting blurring of identity recognition. Under this unique trust relationship, Wen Wei began executing his fraud in 2019. His tactics can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, he completely fabricated a product to specifically target colleagues. In 2019, he invented a fake insurance product named "Intimate Butler Health Insurance," defrauding a victim, Yu Moujun, of over 210,000 yuan in premiums under the guise of purchasing insurance investment products. Between 2020 and 2023, he used the same method to swindle Gu Moudong of more than 50,000 yuan. Throughout the process, Wen Wei cited "simplified internal procedures" as a reason, only issuing self-made, non-standard insurance certificates and never providing formal policies or contracts. Simultaneously, he periodically returned small amounts of "interest" and transferred "commissions" to create the illusion of normal product operations, using a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" approach to delay the exposure of the scheme.
In the second phase, starting in 2021, Wen Wei shifted his focus to products that the company had already discontinued, precisely exploiting past compliance loopholes. From 2021 to early 2023, he repackaged the "Ankang Wuyou Group Nursing Insurance," a product PICC Health Tianjin Branch had ceased selling in 2017, and sold it to five other victims. The reason this long-discontinued policy could still deceive buyers was rooted in the severe lack of proper procedures in its historical sales process. According to a regulatory response letter, PICC Health Tianjin Branch had long engaged in improper practices during the sale of "Ankang Wuyou Group Nursing Insurance," including insurance certificates failing to specify coverage scope and policyholder rights, failing to accurately record insurance business matters, and being unable to provide valid proof of policyholder consent for group insurance. Wen Wei directly adopted these non-compliant operational habits, ensuring victims never received formal contracts or certificates with complete information, thus raising no suspicion. This created a blind spot beyond standard risk controls.
Wrapped in layers of business collaboration, personal relationships, and the psychology of "helping colleagues meet performance targets," trust among coworkers was gradually distorted and exploited. As of January 16, 2023, before Wen Wei was investigated by public security authorities for privately engraving a company seal and placed under bail pending trial, the first phase of the case had resulted in seven victims being defrauded, including four employees of PICC P&C Jizhou sub-branch. As the fraud expanded during the bail period, the total number of victims eventually rose to 19, with 12 being full-time employees of PICC P&C Jizhou sub-branch, and the total amount involved exceeding 5 million yuan.
Fraud Escalated After Suspension
However, the truly striking twist in this case occurred after Wen Wei was placed under bail pending trial. In August 2022, a victim, Gao Mouxia, paid 160,000 yuan in premiums and noticed something off about the "PICC Health Tianjin Branch" seal on the insurance certificate, promptly reporting it to the police. In November of the same year, Wen Wei returned the money, surrendered the privately engraved seal, and obtained the victim's forgiveness. On January 16, 2023, public security authorities placed him under bail pending trial on suspicion of forging company seals.
On its side, PICC Health Tianjin Branch initiated internal risk management measures, but these actions were largely confined to internal systems and failed to effectively curb external risks. Regulatory investigation documents show that on October 26, 2022, the branch decided to suspend Wen Wei that same day and ordered him to cooperate with the investigation. On November 5, it recorded a "resignation" status for Wen Wei in the core business system, aiming to cut off his ability to continue conducting business. The problem was that the company never formally notified key partner institutions, such as PICC P&C Tianjin Branch, about Wen Wei's suspension, system removal, or criminal involvement in writing, nor did it issue any risk warnings to partner staff. This information gap left Wen Wei with a six-month window to continue his fraudulent activities.
During the bail period, operating in a regulatory vacuum, Wen Wei not only refrained from stopping but escalated his efforts. In February 2023, just a month after being released on bail, he targeted acquaintances from his hometown, Su Moucheng and Hu Moujun, a couple, deceiving them into paying over 100,000 yuan in premiums by promising "high deposit returns at the beginning of the year" that were higher than bank interest rates. Since the previous privately engraved seal had been confiscated by authorities, he forged a new "PICC Health Tianjin Branch" seal to continue issuing certificates. Adding to the frustration, because the partner unit had never received an official notification, Wen Wei's name and position remained on the corporate WeChat directory of PICC P&C Jizhou sub-branch until July 11, 2023—the day before his formal criminal detention. Wen Wei leveraged this intact "interactive business specialist" identity, using the pretext of helping with performance targets and tasks, sweetened with small "commission" transfers, to defraud 12 victims, including eight full-time employees of PICC P&C Jizhou sub-branch. One victim, Liu Mouzheng, alone lost over 1.53 million yuan in a single transaction.
This "vacuum period" exposed internal control issues that were later highlighted in regulatory reports. In December 2023, the Tianjin Office of the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a "Financial Regulatory Warning Letter" to PICC Health Tianjin Branch, pointing out several deficiencies in its handling of the Wen Wei case. Risk assessments were highly irregular—the company claimed to have conducted phone follow-ups with 402 policies and 206 clients sold by Wen Wei between October 28 and November 2, 2022, but because these call recordings were only retained for three months, they were all lost and unrecoverable, with victims generally reporting they never received any risk warning calls. Internal accountability procedures were also not rigorous enough, with personnel from the incident location participating in the review. Risk warnings to partner units were persistently absent, with no written notifications ever sent to PICC P&C Tianjin Branch or other related institutions. It was not until June 30, 2023—nearly six months after Wen Wei was placed under criminal coercive measures (bail pending trial) and just before his formal criminal detention and imprisonment—that PICC Health Tianjin Branch finally terminated his employment contract. These gaps in timing, procedures, and notifications turned the bail period, which should have been subject to judicial restraint, into the most concentrated and harmful phase of the fraud in terms of the amount involved.
Criminal Sentence, Civil Claims Stalled
The storm first reached a conclusion in criminal court. The Tianjin Jizhou District People's Court issued a criminal judgment, finding that Wen Wei, with the intent of illegal possession, fabricated insurance products and privately engraved seals to defraud others of a particularly large amount, constituting fraud. Considering he continued to commit crimes while on bail, demonstrating significant subjective malice, no leniency was granted, and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison with a fine of 300,000 yuan. He was also ordered to compensate the victims for losses exceeding 5 million yuan. However, Wen Wei had largely squandered the stolen funds, leaving few assets available for execution, making the criminal compensation order difficult to enforce.
This directly prompted the victims to pursue collective civil lawsuits against PICC Health Tianjin Branch for compensation. Deeper regulatory investigations further confirmed the branch's lapses in daily compliance and crisis management. The issues of risk assessment and notification gaps identified in the Financial Regulatory Warning Letter corroborated the "safety vacuum" exposed in the case. However, the victims' path to civil compensation was initially fraught with difficulty. For example, Ms. He's first-instance lawsuit was dismissed by the Tianjin Railway Transport Court. The court ruled that Wen Wei's actions—fabricating products and privately engraving seals—exceeded his authority and did not constitute "apparent authority." Additionally, the plaintiff, as an insurance company employee, was found to have significant negligence in being defrauded of her own premiums, and the criminal judgment had already designated the compensation subject, precluding duplicate compensation from the defendant. After the first-instance dismissal, Ms. He filed an appeal.
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