13 suspects held after police bust credit card gang
Shanghai Daily, September 18, 2015
Shanghai police early on Wednesday busted two gangs in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and detained 13 suspects who allegedly stole over 1.5 million yuan (US$235,556) with more than 250 fake credit cards.
All the suspects were young, with most of them born in the 1990s.
Police said that some 40 mobile phones and more than 300,000 yuan in cash were also seized from two residential neighborhoods used by them in Wuhan.
Shanghai police acted on a complaint after a migrant worker in Pujiang Town in Minhang District reported to them about his suspicions after applying for a credit card from an online service provider.
The worker, surnamed Yang, wanted to apply for a credit card in June but his salary was too low to get a card with high credit line, police said.
So when he received an ad link on his smartphone on June 28 for credit card applications, he filled in all his personal details on the website, including name, ID card and address.
He soon received a call from a "customer service staff," who told him that he could choose any credit limit he wished and did not have to provide any guarantee or certificate to prove his repayment ability.
But he was required to pay 300 yuan as "material costs," Yang told police.
He remitted the money to a designated bank account. Few days later he received a courier packet containing a China Everbright Bank credit card with a credit limit of 50,000 yuan.
But the card did not work when he tried to use it.
He called the "customer service staff," who said he had to pay "activation fee" and a "deposit" to activate the card.
When the "customer service staff" asked him to remit 18,000 yuan as management fee, he became suspicious and reported the matter to the police.
By that time he had already lost 10,800 yuan.
Police said the card was fake. It found the courier was sent from Wuhan by a person who signed his name as "Manager Wang." Wang had reportedly sent a total of 35 cards to several cities at the same time. One of the recipients was Cao, who was also from Shanghai.
Cao told police he did an online search with key words "quick application of credit card." He clicked on one of the results that showed up and filled in his personal details. He went through the same process as Yang and transferred 4,800 yuan to a bank account but still could not use the credit card sent to him.
Police traced the two "customer service staff" mobile numbers, and another number left on the courier, to Beijing but found it was the using roaming facility from Wuhan. They also discovered that Yang and Cao's money were withdrawn from ATMs in Wuhan. They used surveillance videos of ATMs in Wuhan and tracked down one Yang Li.
After spending two months in Wuhan investigating the scam, Shanghai police, with help from local police, raided two residential blocks at 6am on Wednesday and nabbed 13 young suspects, most of whom were sleeping. They have been brought to Shanghai.
Police said between January and August, there were 11,706 reports of telecom fraud in the city, up 50.3 percent from the same period of last year.
