Thaindian News

Beijing, June 18 (IANS) Gangs in China are now calling up people disguised as police or bank officials and telling them their money is not safe. They then persuade them to transfer the money into phony accounts.

The ministry of public security has warned citizens to be on guard against such crimes.

At least 598 suspects, including 410 from Taiwan, one from Cambodia and one from Vietnam, have been arrested for their involvement in such scams, Xinhua reported.

Liao Jinrong, vice director of the crime investigation department under the ministry, said scams have taken place in 30 regions and the money involved reached over 70 million yuan.

In the largest heist, a woman from Chongqing transferred 3.99 million yuan (about $617,000) to a fake account. She was told her current bank card was invalid and needed to transfer her money to a new card.

Police said the gangs, while pretending to be police officers, tell victims their bank accounts were being used for money laundering and urge them to transfer their money to a “safe account”.

Victims were also told they were involved in economic crimes, and the police needed their identity card numbers and bank account information for investigation.

Often, swindlers have “real addresses” so as to sound more authentic, police said.

Sometimes criminals are helped by telephone operators who make it appear as if the call has originated from an official bureau.

The ministry found that the leaders of the racket were hiding in Taiwan, while the majority of laundering locations were in Guangdong province and Chongqing, along with Cambodia and Indonesia.

Chinese police, with help from forces in other southeast Asian nations, have broken up at least 106 swindling bases and confiscated a large amount of tools used by the suspects, such as bank cards, computers and cell phones.