Chinese police recovered 30 million yuan from text message scammers

Almaty. December 3. Silkroadnews - Beijing Police recently busted a local Internet company for providing network services to scam artists. The bust ended in 30 arrests, recovered 30 million yuan and solved as many as 700 cases involving text message scams.
Beijing News said it was the first major case solved since the government created a special unit to handle network and telecommunication crimes.
The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said such fraud cases are fairly common. Most text messages appear to be from popular reality TV shows and encourage recipients to click the links, enter their personal information and pay a certain amount in exchange for a prize.
In July, Beijing police captured a scammer surnamed Su who was operating out of Guangdong province. Su hired China 8U, an Internet company in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, to develop phishing websites, handle domain registration and site operation.
China 8U was founded in in 2006. During the past few years, it had expanded nationwide with a headquarters in Beijing and branch offices in cities such as Zhangzhou and Xiamen.
Police said the company’s marketing team contacted fraudsters. It then assigned its IT staff to register and maintain phishing websites fraud schemes while the sales team promoted itself online to attract more possible clients.
The investigation is still ongoing. Ge Lei, a lawyer at the Beijing Yingke Law Firm, said suspects could face charges of fraud and may be sentenced to anywhere between a decade to life imprisonment.