Almost 600 fugitives nabbed in pan-Asian phone scam crackdown

Published : June 11, 2011 :: 10:06:56 [ 1,286 views ]

TAIPEI, Jun 10, 2011 (dpa - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Police in half a dozen Asian territories jointly cracked an international telephone scam network and nabbed 598 alleged members, mostly Taiwanese natives, Taiwan's police chief said Friday.

The crackdown, coordinated by Taiwan’s National Police Administration, was carried out Thursday in Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand, Wang Cho-chun, head of the National Police Administration, said.

In the operations, police raided a total of 161 call centres and money-laundering centres and detained 598 fugitives, he said.

They included 410 Taiwanese, 181 Chinese mainlanders, three Thais, two South Koreans, and one Vietnamese and one Cambodian.

Phone scams have been on the rise in Taiwan in recent years, with local media routinely reporting on people who have been duped by phone scam artists.

The scammers usually try to convince victims of some news that requires them to make a payment: they have won a lottery but must pay a deposit first; their child has been kidnapped and they must pay a ransom; or their bank account has been used by a money-laundering ring and they must transfer money, for example.

In the last couple of years, Taiwan phone scam rings have expanded their operations to China — making the calls from call centres in China to dupe Taiwanese residents, or Chinese people in South-east Asian nations.

Report by : TMC Net

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