China indicts 52 per cent more cyber scammers than last year as country cracks down on fraud rings
- Top prosecutor’s office says it has indicted 34,000 people in first 10 months of the year, with about half of them involved in overseas syndicates
- The number is expected to increase in coming months as many suspects arrested in Myanmar are extradited to China
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate said in a statement on Thursday that the number of indictments was expected to increase in the coming months because a large number of suspects had been extradited to China recently.
A total of 17,000 people were indicted for taking part in overseas cyber syndicates in the first 10 months, up 5.3 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year. Their victims were mostly in mainland China.
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Cyber fraud was increasingly dominated by large syndicates, according to the statement.
“Scattered and independent cyber syndicates are becoming fewer and have been replaced by enormous syndicates that operate under the guise of industrial estates or technology parks,” it said.
“These giant syndicates are usually based overseas, and they form enormous and stable fraud networks through control and manage multiple fraud syndicates.”
It cited the example of a criminal enterprise funded by six kingpins that was working under the guise of an alloy and construction material market in northern Myanmar. They “recruited” 18 cyber fraud syndicates to move there and provided food, accommodation and an armed militia to prevent workers from escaping.
The top prosecutor’s office said cyber fraud had given rise to other crimes, from human trafficking and kidnapping to illegal detention.
It also warned that more young people were becoming involved in cybercrime.
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In the first 10 months of this year, 20 per cent of those indicted for cyber fraud, providing technological help or covering up such fraud were between 16 and 22 years old.
It said 1 per cent of these suspects were under 18 years old, an increase of 68 per cent from the corresponding period last year.
“Some of the minors were even masterminds of such crimes, meaning these kinds of crimes are penetrating among the underage population,” it said.
For example, one syndicate was led by four minors who recruited 22 other minors from schools and elsewhere and swindled 2.35 million yuan (US$331,460) from 1,700 victims.
The procuratorate also warned that technologies involved in cyber fraud had become cheaper and more available, making it easier for scammers to trick authentication systems through face forgery, hack into mobile phones for banking information and use speech synthesis technology to impersonate family members or banking staff and convince victims to transfer money.
It said elderly people, young people heavily involved in online gaming and housewives eager to find jobs had become prime targets for scammers.
