Third-party payment systems enabling theft

BEIJING - About a year ago, a man surnamed Song, a programmer in Shenzhen, received a mysterious call and lost 280,000 yuan ($43,460) via Alipay, one of China's most popular online payment platforms. This was odd as Song did not have a single penny in his Alipay account. It turned out the swindlers had taken three steps to transfer his loan via Alipay's micro-loan provider Ant Micro.

Almost at the same time, about 1,400 km away, Lin Liangquan rushed to the police department, reporting that more than 27 million yuan was missing from his company account in Haining city, East China's Zhejiang province.

Lin said a stranger called and faxed a wanted poster, claiming the company had been involved in a pyramid scheme and demanded an immediate check of their bank accounts. A malware program was later implanted and the vast sum of money was soon transferred via multiple third-party payment platforms.