Man Makes Millions by Defrauding Victims During Shanghai COVID!

Source: OT-Team(S,J), Paper.cn, People.com.cn

Shanghai Police reported that, since April 10, a man in Shanghai has illegally opened a shop on an online platform, by stocking up a large amount of vegetables, eggs, poultry meat and other food, and significantly raising prices for sales, the man has made a profit of more than 1.5 million Yuan in less than 10 days.

Currently, the man has been arrested by police in Jing'an District for price gouging.

On April 18, Shanghai citizens reported to the police that, someone near to South Shaanxi Road was selling chicken, duck and other food ingredients with significantly unreasonable high prices, suspected of price gouging during the epidemic.
 

After receiving the report, the Jing'an Police and the Market Supervision Department carried out an on-site inspection on South Shaanxi Road, and found out that there were couriers gathered near the alley of the community, and a large amount of vegetables, eggs, chicken, duck and other food raw materials were piled up in the alley. After a visit and investigation, the police quickly identified the suspect surnamed Gao.
 

The investigation showed that since April 10, Gao had hoarded a large amount of food supplies, and illegally rented food business licenses from others to open an online shop. In pursuit of high profits, Gao also purchased green vegetables (12 Yuan/kg), frozen chicken (38 Yuan/piece) and frozen duck (35 Yuan/piece) from places out of Shanghai at wholesale prices and sold them at really high prices in his online shop during epidemic control time. 

The selling prices were 150%, 184% and 437% higher than the wholesale prices.
 

As of the incident, Gao had got accumulated sales turnover of more than 1.75 million Yuan and the illegal profit was up to more than 1.5 million Yuan.

At present, Gao has been taken criminal compulsory measures by Jing'an Police according to law for the crime of illegal business operation, and the case is under further investigation.
 

Police in Shanghai reminded that: The police will take "zero tolerance" to all kinds of illegal and criminal acts such as price gouging and price fraud. At the same time, when purchasing goods during epidemic time, citizens could keep consumption records or screenshots of communication with the sellers, relevant records can be used as evidence when safeguarding their rights.

4 Million itizens Removed from Lockdown Areas

On April 19, according to the test results of the phased screening, Shanghai dynamically adjusted the risk levels of areas across the city. 

Currently, there are 16,650 Lockdown Areas, involving 11.878 million people, with a decrease of more than 4 million people compared with the first delineation previously; And the number of people in the Controlled Areas and Precautionary Areas has increased by more than 2 million each.

“The epidemic situation in Shanghai has shown a downward trend in recent days. Communities reporting more than 100 new cases in a single day have dropped for 3 consecutive days, and the community spread has been effectively curbed”, according to the announcement of local Health Commission on April 20.