Chinese ‘fake cop’ scams fleeing Beijing’s crackdown are setting up in Southeast Asia: Indonesian police

Indonesian police arrest 85 Chinese on suspicion of running a ‘fake cop’ scam that targeted victims back in China

The arrests are the latest in a string of cases to have occurred in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore

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Chinese con artists are relocating to Southeast Asia to evade a crackdown by Beijing. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 7:00am, 27 Nov 2019Updated: 12:38pm, 27 Nov 2019

Chinese con artists are relocating to Southeast Asia to evade a crackdown by Beijing, according to Indonesian police who this week arrested 85 Chinese nationals accused of running a “fake cop” scam.

In the latest Chinese-run scam to have been caught operating out of the region, con artists posed as police officers, prosecutors and bankers to cheat victims back in mainland China out of their savings.

“They told their victims they had legal problems and demanded money to settle the issue,” the Jakarta police chief Gatot Eddy Pramono said on Monday.

Some scammers had pretended to be bankers offering investment schemes and convinced their victims to transfer money to banks in mainland China.

“The reason they come to Indonesia is because there is a clampdown in China and hence they have to run away to foreign countries as it is not possible for them to remain back home,” said Gatot.

The latest scam, which is thought to have cheated its victims out of US$2.5 million, comes after a string of other cases in which Chinese-run operations in Southeast Asia targeted victims in mainland China.