Police warn of increase in bank and identity card fraud

A senior police officer from Guangdong province has urged bank card holders to not to sell them or their identity cards.

Huang Peifu, political commissar of the Economic Criminal Investigation Bureau of Guangdong Provincial Department of Public Security, said criminal gangs buy bank and identity cards from residents in rural areas and resell them for big profits with such cases on the rise.

"The law breakers usually use the bank and identity cards they have purchased for money laundering, offering bribes to local Party and government officials, gambling and telephone frauds," Huang said in the Guangdong provincial capital Guangzhou on Thursday.

According to an officer from the Guangzhou Baiyun District Bureau of Public Security, gangsters usually buy a bank or identity card for between 200 and 300 yuan ($46.51) from local villagers and resell them at between 600 and 1,000 yuan.

The identity cards can be used to apply for bank cards, said the officer who did not wish to be named.

Police in Baiyun district, an area adjoining both urban and rural areas, have cracked an increasing number of cases involving the illegal trade in bank and identity cards in recent years, he added.

Officers usually have to face difficulties in investigating and fighting such cases, as the suspects usually defraud their victims in a city and then withdraw money in other places, Huang said.

Police detained 70 suspects and seized more than 4,000 bank cards, plus many identity cards and other equipment, during a campaign codenamed Haiyan-4 between May and July.

zhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn