Society

China police nab over 7,000 for telephone scams

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-18 22:33

BEIJING - Chinese police have broken up more than 1,000 gangs and caught over 7,000 people allegedly involved in telephone scams and related frauds since last June, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Friday.

Police have solved more than 28,000 cases with more than 85 million yuan ($12.5 million) recovered or frozen since the ministry launched a special crackdown on telecommunications fraud last June, MPS said in a statement.

The crackdown is part of an MPS mission to curb rampant fraudulent activities involving the use of telecom technology and networks in recent years.

The MPS urged public security authorities at all levels to "strike telephone scams in a harsh and active manner."

Public security authorities have been ordered to crack down on criminal groups engaged in telephone scams and eliminate telecommunication networks offering services for telephone frauds.

In China, telephone scams usually involve the caller pretending to be the person receiving the call's superior, long-lost friend, or even someone from the Mafia before asking the receiver to forward money to a bank account.