Determination Of Property Loss In The Crime Of Fraud

The nature of crime lies in the violation of legal interests,and the purpose of setting up property crimes in criminal law is to protect the legal interests of the state and citizens’ property.Therefore,the elements of property loss in the crime of fraud affect the fate of crime or non-crime,as well as the ultimate sentencing standards.However,China’s criminal law provides relatively simple and abstract provisions for the crime of fraud.The statement of the guilt is only "whoever swindles public or private money or property".There are no more detailed legal provisions dealing with the elements of property loss.This situation leads to many differences on whether the establishment of the crime of fraud requires property loss.At the same time,neither the German or Japanese criminal law theory nor the Chinese academic community has reached a consensus.What is the scope of "property" in property loss? What is the status of property loss in the constitutive elements of the crime of fraud? What criteria should be used to judge property loss? Can the victim’s access to relative benefits also be considered a property loss? The existence of the above disputes affects the judicial practice of our country in a long period of time to identify the crime of fraud is in a state of confusion.By introducing typical cases,the introduction analyzes the fact that the elements of property loss have a substantial impact on the determination of fraud in some cases,and proposes that the theory of criminal law needs to clarify the connotative positioning,judgment standards,and specific identification,so as to provide theoretical support for judicial practice.In the main part,discusses the solutions to related issues from the perspective of criminal law theory and judicial practice.In chapter one,based on the theoretical basis of judging the property loss of the crime of fraud,the "property" in the crime of fraud should be limited to the scope of legal-economic property theory,and the meaning of "loss" is defined by the income and expenditure settlement of objective loss.And it is believed that the property loss should be positioned as an independent constituent element.The second chapter studies the criteria for judging the property loss of the crime of fraud,sorts out the viewpoints of the individual property reduction theory and the overall property reduction theory,and denies the standpoint of individual property theory from the inherent logical contradiction of the theory,the wronginterpretation of the law and the judicial practice.Because of the cautious stance that the fraud should be maintained and the order of transactions should not become a legal interest,it is advocated to take the position of reducing doctrine of overall property in the judgment of loss,negating the traditional view that the victim’s pure property delivery is regarded as property loss.The third chapter mainly introduces the consideration of the transaction purpose of the victim to solve the possible rigidity of the overall property reduction theory in special cases.According to the above theory,it is proposed to classify fraud cases into economic transactions,unilateral payments,and mixed contracts.In these three types of specific cases,the property loss is identified through three methods:the reduction of the overall property value,the failure of the victim’s social purpose,and the realization of the purpose of the investigation after the property loss is confirmed.Finally,it is clear that the determination of property loss and the calculation of the crime amount cannot be directly equivalent.And it further analyzes the relationship between the two,the calculation standard of the amount in the crime of fraud,and the treatment of special issues such as virtual property,crime cost,and small multiple frauds.