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A group of men who used profiles of beautiful and successful Chinese people online to seduce foreigners and later steal their money has been destroyed by the Chinese police.
The police said that the group members could not speak English, they relied on translation software to chat and make friends with their victims. After gaining their trust, they would entice the victims to invest, gamble, or transfer the money directly to their accounts.The scheme has been used on Chinese people but it has proven difficult to find potential victims in China now as the country has invested heavily in educating its citizens about such fraudulent activities.Such groups are now more and more targeting foreigners in and outside China, the police said.The Public Security Bureau of Changning City, southern China's Hunan province, recently announced that they had destroyed a criminal gang headquartered in Panyu, Guangzhou, southern China's Guangdong province, suspected of specifically defrauding foreigners.
The report said the police arrested 7 members of the gang involved in the crime.A police from Changning told reporters that he discovered suspicious activities by people who were led by a 30-year-old man surnamed Zhou in July this year.
Zhou controlled a number of people who were operating scam activities in various areas of China, which made it difficult for him to investigate the case.
He reported the case to Luo Peng, the Deputy Mayor of Changning City and the Director of Public Security, who personally dispatched a 10-person specialized team to investigate the case.The team quickly found details of the gang, their members, as well as their whereabouts.With the support of the local police in Guangzhou, the team arrested the gang leader, Zhou, along with 7 other members of the gang. They also seized 10 computers, 74 mobile phones, and hundreds of overseas sim cards.
The police said that they caught the suspects in action, with chats still ongoing on their computers and mobile phones, all in the English language.
"Through a preliminary investigation, we found that the gang had closer contacts or association with telecom fraud dens in northern Myanmar, Laos, and other countries." The team leader told reporters.He added that all the suspects could not speak English and their education level was low.Zhou and other suspects confessed that they only targeted foreigners. They registered their social media accounts using mobile phone numbers from India, the Middle East, etc. and used copied scripts or translation software to chat with their potential victims.
"This is the first time that we have handled such a case, and since all victims are from overseas, we can't confirm the amount of money that was scammed and we can't really identify the victims involved." Said the special team leader.
The suspects have all been detained in accordance with the law. The case is still under investigation for further processing.
*The opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author.* Follow Us
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