Capital police crack down scammers targeting elderly

Beijing police caught 3,400 people suspected of defrauding elderly residents last year, recovering about 1.86 billion yuan ($273 million) in stolen funds, the capital's Public Security Bureau reported on Monday.

"We took the fight against scammers targeting the elderly as our main focus in 2022, working harder to deal with cases in which elderly victims have been cheated through fake health or nursing care services or investment projects," said Hu Yingkun, deputy head of the bureau's criminal investigation department.

He said that while focusing more on the elderly, police also reminded people to remain alert and not to transfer money to strangers, especially if they know that some people have been targeted by scammers.

Statistics provided by the bureau show that police working for the fraud-busting platform persuaded people not to blindly trust fraudsters more than 23.7 million times in 2022, which helped save about 9.4 billion yuan.

In addition, the police have taken advantage of livestreaming and short-video services to produce tips on avoiding fraud for the public and to raise their awareness of the law, Hu said.

Last year, Beijing police also solved 9,400 cases of burglary and vehicle theft and detained 143 people on suspicion of excavating, stealing or reselling cultural artifacts, he added.