Prosecutors approved the arrest of 39 criminal suspects in a cross-border telecom scam on Aug 1. in Tianjin, a city in northern China.

On June 17, police from Tianjin along with their Laotian counterparts stormed three dens in Vientiane, Laos, arresting and repatriating a total of 42 suspects. The police investigation shows that one group of the suspects pretended to be law enforcement officials, calling their victims and telling them to transfer money into the fake officials' accounts. The money involved in that case amounted to 800,000 yuan.

Another group of 17 suspects defrauded money through gambling websites. After the victims transferred money to their account, they refused to let the users withdraw money and eventually shut down the websites. About 10 million yuan were defrauded through this scam.

A third group of 14 suspects procured money through a second online gambling scam, which involved about 44 million yuan.