China to initiate international alliance against telecom, online fraud

BEIJING -- China will initiate an international alliance against telecom and online fraud, with its establishment planned for September at the 2026 Conference of the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum.

China's Ministry of Public Security announced at a news conference on Friday that it will host the founding ceremony of the alliance during the conference, which will be held in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu province.

The alliance will be an intergovernmental organization with broad participation from law enforcement agencies worldwide, aimed at effectively combating transnational telecom and online fraud, said Jiang Guoli, head of the ministry's Criminal Investigation Bureau.

More than 40 countries have so far expressed their willingness to join the alliance, Jiang said.

China sincerely welcomes all countries to join the alliance, strengthen intelligence sharing, enhance the effectiveness of joint operations, step up coordinated control measures, and work together to combat telecom and online fraud worldwide, he said.

Jiang said telecom and online fraud has become a global scourge and a major challenge for social governance.

Chinese police have made combating and curbing such crimes a priority for the next five years, he said, noting that the vast majority of fraud operations are currently based outside China.

Drawing on existing law enforcement mechanisms and the soon-to-be-established alliance, Chinese police will continue to intensify efforts to combat and curb such crimes, he added.

China has in recent years strengthened law enforcement cooperation with more than 30 countries, including Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Myanmar, to tackle cross-border telecom and online fraud, building effective cooperation mechanisms and delivering significant results, said Jiang.

Among these efforts, China and Myanmar have since 2023 carried out joint operations that led to the dismantling of four notorious criminal gangs in Myanmar's Kokang region.

Earlier this year, police authorities from China, the United States and the United Arab Emirates carried out their first joint law enforcement operation, leading to the arrest of 276 criminal suspects.

Cooperation with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other countries has also resulted in the arrest and repatriation of more than 20,000 telecom and online fraud suspects this year, according to Jiang.