124 arrested for fraud in northeast China

CHANGCHUN - A total of 124 people in connection with more than 280 Internet and telecom fraud cases were apprehended in northeast China's Jilin Province, local police said Tuesday.

Police started investigating in May, when a resident in Liaoyuan City claimed she had lost more than 540,000 yuan (82,000 U.S. dollars) of investment in an online company in Shaanxi Province.

Police went to Changchun, Qingdao, Changsha and Xi'an to investigate and located the den in an office building in Xi'an after retrieving more than 20,000 pieces of transaction data and 80 hours of surveillance footage.

In late August, police in Liaoyuan and Xi'an arrested 124 suspects in a joint operation. More than 200 computers and 100 scripts for cheating victims out of money were seized. The suspects were taken back to Liaoyuan in early September.

Preliminary investigation showed the ringleader, identified by the surname Zheng, set up the company in 2016 and lured fresh graduates to join the company with false promises of high pay.

They drew online investors in the name of spot trading, which turned out to be fake. The cases involved nearly 100 million yuan (about 15 million US dollars).

Further investigation is under way.