“Hello! This is the Industrial and Commercial Bank. We noticed that this month in your school’s payroll system, someone has received a total of over 60,000 yuan in five payments, we would like to remind you.” On December 5, 2019, Director Ye of the Finance Department of Henan Province Arts and Crafts School was shocked after receiving a reminder call from the Industrial and Commercial Bank. This also unveiled the embezzlement scandal involving the school’s accountant, Xie Shen.
Xie Shen, male, born in March 1986, graduated with a degree in accounting in July 2009 and was hired as an accountant at Henan Province Arts and Crafts School, responsible for the payroll of all faculty and staff. On December 9, 2019, the disciplinary inspection and supervision team of the Henan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision conducted an interview with Xie Shen. After confirming that Xie Shen was suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, the Jinshui District Supervisory Commission of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, initiated an investigation and took detention measures that evening.Small loopholes open the “Pandora’s box” of greed After being detained, Xie Shen cooperated with the investigation and confessed to his illegal possession of public funds in the face of solid evidence. So how did he come up with the idea of tampering with the payroll? This started with a financial loophole that Xie Shen discovered by accident. One day in April 2014, when he imported the data from the payroll approved by the leadership into the bank’s payroll data template, he found that the total salary paid in the bank’s payroll data template was less than the total salary paid in the approved payroll. “The total salary paid should equal the total salary due minus the total of the ‘five insurances and one fund’; the data inconsistency indicates that there must be a calculation error somewhere.” As a financial staff member, Xie Shen should have corrected the problem upon discovery, but he instead began to calculate for his own benefit. Upon recalculating, he found that the personal income tax deducted from the salaries of on-duty staff was miscalculated, resulting in a shortfall of several thousand yuan. He decided to take advantage of this mistake and directly added the excess amount to his salary in the bank’s payroll data template. Starting from April 2014, Xie Shen repeatedly altered the amount of personal income tax that should have been paid by on-duty faculty and staff. Just from this item alone, he embezzled over 1.27 million yuan.Greed drives the black hand to public funds and pension money Not satisfied with the several thousand yuan he was unlawfully obtaining each month, Xie Shen’s greed grew, and he extended his hand to the public funds of newly transferred personnel. New faculty and staff typically take several months to a year to complete their transfer procedures. During this time, the school usually pays the housing provident fund for the new staff, and once the salary procedures are completed, the previously advanced funds are deducted from their salaries. Xie Shen reached for the money that should have been deducted and returned to the school. In the bank’s payroll data template, Xie Shen directly added the amount that should have been deducted to his salary, thus the money that should have been returned to the school ended up in his salary account. He embezzled over 580,000 yuan in this manner. Soon, he became more adept at his schemes and targeted the salaries and subsidies of retired faculty and staff. After leaving the school, retired personnel have less contact and communication with the school, and they may not be aware of year-end bonuses and subsidies. Xie Shen believed that tampering with this money would be less likely to be discovered. He directly changed the names and bank account numbers in the payroll data template for retired personnel to his own, and the money was deposited into his salary card. Having successfully embezzled without being caught, he became even bolder. In November 2018, he once transferred over 300,000 yuan in pensions for 26 individuals directly into his salary card in four transactions. According to audits, from 2014 to 2019, Xie Shen altered payroll data over 200 times, embezzling nearly 3 million yuan in personal income tax, public funds, pensions, and other amounts.The “Million Termite” in the Payroll is Severely Punished “I felt like I was addicted to drugs, deeply trapped and unable to extricate myself.” Xie Shen stated that his greed was mainly due to losing focus on his responsibilities. According to investigators, he used most of the embezzled funds to purchase model toys and recharge games, with the most expensive model toy costing 35,000 yuan. “Integrity is fundamental, ethics are paramount, and adhering to principles without falsifying accounts” is the most basic professional requirement for financial accounting personnel. However, the so-called hobbies and greed drove Xie Shen to repeatedly take risks, testing the law at the cost of ruining his personal future and sacrificing family happiness, turning “Toy Story” into his life’s “Waterloo.” On January 6, 2020, Xie Shen was expelled from the Party and public office for serious violations of discipline and law, and on January 13, he was transferred to judicial authorities for suspected embezzlement crimes. “The lessons from the Xie Shen case are profound, exposing the blind spots in supervision and institutional loopholes that are thought-provoking,” said a relevant person in charge of the Jinshui District Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision in Zhengzhou City during an interview, emphasizing that this case serves as a warning for relevant units to strictly implement financial regulations, strengthen supervision and constraints, enhance the education of financial personnel on party conduct and integrity, and improve financial systems to block loopholes at the source.（Zhang Yixin）Source: Central Commission for Discipline InspectionNational Supervisory Commission Website
