More than 1,000 cases of Internet fraud were handled by the courts last year, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPP).

"In many cases, unsuspecting victims were cheated out of millions or tens of millions of yuan. The most serious case involved over 100 million yuan (15.3 million U.S. dollars)," said Li Ruiyi, a senior criminal judge at the SPP.

Different from "traditional" phone scams, Internet fraud often involves identity theft and software is employed to disguise the criminal's identities and phone numbers.

According to Li, the severity of the crimes led some companies to file for bankruptcy, while some individuals committed suicide.

In one case, suspects illegally appropriated the personal information of retirees online and recruited a team to contact these individuals with the news that they had "promotional sales" or had won "awards." They fleeced more than 1.88 million yuan from over 3,000 victims across the country.

Judges have been ordered to issue harsh punishment on key members of telecom fraud groups.