Fraud biggest element of online crime

Online fraud made up the biggest part of online crimes in the past three years, China's top court said on Tuesday.

A report of the Supreme People's Court released on Tuesday showed that more than 30 percent of the online crimes dealt with by Chinese courts from 2016 to 2018 focused on online fraud, "which seriously harmed people's lives, property safety and disturbed the public order," said Luo Guoliang, deputy head of the top court's No 3 Criminal Division.

Other types of online crimes include the sale of illegal drugs, gambling and pyramid selling.

To help protect the online environment and reduce economic losses of the people, courts across the country intensified punishments to swindlers, such as sentencing them to five or more years in prison, Luo said. Under Chinese Criminal Law, such sentences can be identified as a felony.

The report stipulates that defendants in more than 50 percent of fraud-related cases used WeChat, the most popular instant messaging service in the country, as the communication tool for the fraud, said Luo.

Many defendants pretended to be friends of victims or be women to defraud, the report said, adding nearly 20 percent of the online fraud cases were made after the swindlers gained the trust and personal information of victims.

"We'll disclose more influential online frauds through our website to warn residents to protect private data," Luo said, advising the public to not transfer money to strange or unknown bank accounts and not store identity information in mobile phones.