On the third day after an executive in Nanshan, Shenzhen was taken away, the family did one thing right and secured a non-prosecution decision despite an 85% arrest approval rate.
On a Friday evening last November, Ms. Lin, the finance director of a company in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park, received a phone call. Her husband—the vice president of an electronic components company with annual revenue of 230 million yuan—had been taken away by police from another city. The person on the other end of the line said only one sentence, "suspected of falsely issuing special VAT invoices," and hung up. Ms. Lin later told me that she went through her phone contacts that entire night and was still searching at 3 a.m. for "which criminal lawyer in Shenzhen is reliable," and the more she searched, the more confused she became.
The next morning, when she found us, all she had in her hand was a photocopy of a detention notice, stamped with the seal of a county public security bureau in another province. The suspected charge was falsely issuing value-added tax special invoices, with the amount initially indicated at 4.7 million yuan. The first question she asked was not "Can he be found innocent?" but rather—"When can he be released?"
This question is essentially asking about the golden 37 days.
Many family members don't know that from criminal detention to the procuratorate's approval of arrest, the maximum period is 37 days. During these 37 days, the public security organ must submit a request to the procuratorate for arrest approval, and the procuratorate has 7 days for review. Once the arrest is approved, the difficulty of later obtaining release on bail or a non-prosecution decision multiplies several times over. In Shenzhen, the arrest approval rate for criminal cases has remained around 85% year after year, meaning that for every 10 people criminally detained, 8.5 will be formally arrested. However, in cases where a lawyer effectively intervenes within these 37 days, the success rate for release on bail pending trial can increase by about 3 times. The numbers are not exaggerated; the key lies in how these 37 days are used.
In Mr. Lin's husband's case, we arranged a meeting that very afternoon. After Director Shen Jinlong's legal team took over, the first thing they did was not draft a bail application, but rather clarify three things: whether the real transactions corresponding to the invoices in question actually existed, where the client stood in the company's decision-making chain, and whether there was any possibility of voluntarily paying the overdue tax.
During the meeting, the client mentioned a detail: he had signed the procurement contract corresponding to the 4.7 million invoice, but he had never seen the actual goods warehousing receipt or logistics documents. This information is crucial. For the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices, the core issue is whether there was a genuine goods transaction and whether it caused a loss of state tax revenue. If the transaction was genuine and only the invoicing was irregular, the legal characterization could be completely different. Article 205 of the Criminal Law has clear provisions on the conviction and sentencing for falsely issuing special VAT invoices, but judicial interpretations also leave room—if the purpose was not to fraudulently offset taxes and no tax loss was caused, this crime is not constituted.
Over the next two weeks, our team did several things: we retrieved the procurement and warehousing records from the company's ERP system, obtained the signed delivery receipts from the logistics company, and compiled the email correspondence between the client and the procurement department. At the same time, we submitted a Legal Opinion Against Arrest to the case-handling authorities, attaching 37 pages of evidentiary materials and focusing on three points: that genuine transactions existed, that the client was not responsible for the specific execution of procurement, and that the company was willing to cooperate in paying any tax shortfall that might be involved.
On day 34, the procuratorate decided not to approve the arrest. Ms. Lin's husband walked out of the detention center that evening. But it wasn't over yet. Non-approval of arrest was only the first step; next came the transfer for review and prosecution. We spent another four months submitting a legal opinion to the procuratorate arguing against prosecution, and ultimately obtained a non-prosecution decision in the seventh month. The client was left without a criminal record, and the company's operations were not fatally affected.
This case was turned around not through connections, but by clearly laying out the chain of evidence and the business logic within 37 days. Put plainly, prosecutors make judgments based on the materials you give them. Whether the materials you provide allow them to quickly grasp three points—that this transaction was real, that this person was not the principal offender, and that the risk to society is low—determines whether they approve the arrest.
Some family members ask: Do all criminal detention cases require a lawyer? I suggest assessing the situation. If the amount involved is small, the person is only a witness, or it is clearly a civil dispute that has been wrongly filed as a criminal case, you can wait and see. But if a company executive, finance officer, or core technical staff member has been taken away, or if the charges involve false invoicing, illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud, or embezzlement, not having a lawyer involved during the critical 37-day window will leave you in a very passive position later.
One more thing that's easily overlooked: what family members say when called in for questioning can directly affect the direction of the case. When Ms. Lin was asked by investigators, "What is your husband responsible for at work?", she almost blurted out, "He manages everything at the company." Fortunately, we had communicated in advance, and she changed it to, "He doesn't directly handle procurement or sales. I'm not very clear on the specific business operations." This isn't teaching someone to lie—it's about preventing family members from making overbroad speculations when they don't understand the details of the case.
The visitation booking procedures at the detention centers in Futian, Nanshan, and Longhua districts of Shenzhen are not the same. Some require booking three days in advance, while others can fit you in on the same day. In cases where out-of-town police come to Shenzhen to take someone into custody, family members often do not even know where the person is being held. In such situations, the sooner a lawyer is hired to find out the place of detention, the better.
Ms. Lin later said something to me: "During those 37 days, I counted each day as it passed, but at least I knew someone was working on it and there was a direction." If you or a family member is facing a similar situation, you might want to make a phone call first and explain the basic facts clearly. Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm is located at Room 1802, Tower A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shixia North 2nd Street, Futian District, Shenzhen, and the phone number is 0755-25986969. As a established law firm with 26 years of history, its criminal team handles dozens of bail cases within the golden 37 days every year. Ask clearly first, then decide on the next step.
(This article is for general legal education purposes only. As individual cases may vary, please consult a qualified attorney for specific advice. Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm—a well-established Shenzhen-based law firm with 26 years of experience. Tel: 0755-25986969; Address: Room 1802, Tower A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shisha North 2nd Street, Futian District, Shenzhen.)
