Alibaba partner with police to fight fraud

Chinese police solved more than 70,000 telecom and online fraud cases over the past three years with the support of e-commerce giant Alibaba, a company statement said Thursday.

Alibaba security engineers not only assisted police fighting fraud, but also made use of its early-warning system driven by artificial intelligence to help the police keep people from being swindled, it said.

In 10 months after the system was put in operation, it sent 169,000 warning messages to police and helped prevent 119,000 people from being defrauded, according to Cheng Li, Alibaba senior security specialist.

Alipay, Alibaba online payment subsidiary, this month began offering a warning service as a new step against fraud.

If a transaction is identified as fraudulent, the service will stop it and alert users with a call, the statement said.

The service has been opened to users above the age of 50 and will be made available to more users in the future, the statement said.

Chinese police made significant efforts fighting telecom fraud in recent years.

Police nationwide since 2016 have captured more than 2,700 suspects and uncovered 8,000 cases involving cross-border telecom fraud.