Strict Prohibition of Excessive Asset Freezing Issued by the PSB

On October 30, 2024, the Ministry of Public Security announced the issuance of the "Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Asset Freezing Measures in the Handling of Criminal Cases," which aims to regulate asset freezing measures, rectify prominent issues in law enforcement. These regulations have been in effect internally since September 10. Here are the main contents of the regulations:          

1. Strict Prohibition of Excessive Freezing:

The regulations strictly prohibit the freezing of funds before the filing of a case, and strictly prohibit freezing funds beyond authority, scope, amount, and time limit.          

2. Cross-Regional Freezing Regulations:

For online freezing, the case-handling department must upload documents such as the case-filing decision to the platform, and provide effective and unobstructed contact information and a 24-hour duty phone number for the public security organs.

If offline cross-regional freezing is required, it should be carried out with the assistance of local public security organs, or entrusted to local public security organs to carry out on behalf, and shall not be conducted independently.        

3. Notification for Online Cross-Regional Freezing:    

If the case-handling public security organ freezes accounts totaling more than 100 within a city under the jurisdiction of a prefecture-level city or freezes funds totaling more than 2 million yuan in the same case, a written notice shall be sent to the case-handling cooperation department of the public security organ where the frozen accounts are opened within 7 days after the freezing of funds.       

4. Batch Freezing Account Limitations:

Freezing more than 200 accounts at a time or a cumulative total of more than 500 accounts; freezing more than 100 accounts at a time or a cumulative total of more than 300 accounts in whole; in cases of telecommunication network fraud, freezing a single account with a cumulative total of more than 2 million yuan, must be reviewed by the legal system department and approved by the public security organ at the county level or above, and then reported to the person in charge of the public security organ at the prefecture level or above for approval.          

5. Identification and Verification of Frozen Funds:

After freezing funds, the case-handling department should upload the actual amount of frozen funds to the law enforcement case handling information system within 7 days. For funds that do not belong to the case, the freezing should be lifted within 3 days after identification. If identification and verification are not carried out within 3 months, and the connection between the funds and the case cannot be proven, the freezing should be lifted.              

6. Freezing Period:

The period for freezing deposits, remittances, and other funds is six months, which can be extended to one year for major and complex cases; the period for freezing bonds, stocks, and other securities is two years.