Jobless man impersonates underworld boss to extort

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-20 11:45

A jobless man from Hebei province who pretended to be an underworld boss in order to extort money from people was recently arrested.

The man, surnamed Liu, managed to collect 80,000 yuan ($11,700) from 52 people in 17 municipalities and provinces throughout the country.

Liu's extortion racket was discovered last November when he tried to extort money from Jiang, a Beijing Railway Bureau employee.

The police traced his accounts to Chengde, his hometown in Hebei province, and caught him as he was using an ATM machine to withdraw money.

Liu admitted that he bought 1,000 pieces of personal information about other people four months ago and used the information to extort money.

(Beijing Times)