China will crack down heavily on overseas telecom fraud: top law enforcement body

The Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has announced plans to crack down on overseas telecom fraud in accordance with the law and intensify the investigation and disruption of criminal gangs colluding with foreign forces, in a move to safeguard the vital interests of the Chinese public.

The announcement was made at a recent plenary meeting of the commission. The meeting proposed to systematically and legally tackle overseas telecom fraud from its source, and to crack down on domestic criminal elements, further strengthening public awareness, media reported on Sunday.

In recent years, under the guise of "high salary recruitment," many overseas telecom fraud syndicates have lured and intimidated ordinary people to engage in fraud, and formed a network of criminal elements engaged in violent detention and human trafficking, the meeting noted.

Commission officials said that overseas telecom fraud groups are well organized, and it is necessary to strengthen international cooperation to jointly disrupt telecom fraud with partner countries.

Additionally, in view of the use of new methods of fraud such as blockchain, Metaverse, virtual currency and AI, the commission pointed out the need for public security, finance, telecommunications and cyberspace related authorities to work together to apply advanced technologies to jointly fight against crimes.

The meeting also pointed out that the public security and judicial departments should further strengthen public awareness over the issue as a means of identifying and preventing these groups from engaging in illegal behavior.

The commission’s announcement came with recent reports of Chinese nationals subjected to "virtual kidnapping" telecom fraud. According to the Consulate-General in Edinburgh, fraudsters impersonated public security personnel to steal personal information of the nationals, and extorted huge amounts of "ransom" money from their families.

To disrupt telecom network fraud, the Intermediate People's Court of Xuzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, organized 11 grass-roots courts under its jurisdiction to focus on 52 telecom network fraud cases on Friday. A total of 85 defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 11 years to three months of detention in accordance with the law, with fines also being issued.