On March 21, the Beijing police reported that since the end of January, 63 cases of telecommunications network fraud involving the epidemic have been cracked, 85 suspects have been arrested, and a total of more than 130 million yuan of property losses have been avoided.
In February this year, Haidian police received a report from the masses that they were defrauded of buying more than 10,000 yuan in the name of selling masks. After investigation, the suspect first impersonated the owner of a community and released information on selling masks in the owner’s WeChat group. After seeing the information, the victim contacted the suspect and paid for the purchase. The suspect then fabricated various excuses to refuse to deliver .
After further work, the police handling the case arrested the suspect Liu (male, 22 years old) in a community in Wenquan Town, Haidian District on February 28. After review, Liu confessed to the criminal facts of the fraud and has now been detained in criminal cases. The case is in further work.
According to the police, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, the demand for protective items such as masks, protective clothing, disinfectants and so on has surged, and some criminals have taken this as a “business opportunity” to publish false sales information online to implement fraud. In such cases, criminal suspects usually publish false sales information through online trading platforms, WeChat, QQ, Baidu Post Bar and other channels. After the victim transfers money to them, the suspects immediately disappear.