By Cui Can
The number of new cases involving telecom and internet fraud in China has seen year-on-year decline for nine months in a row, the Ministry of Public Security announced at a press conference on Thursday.
The continuous drop in case numbers has mainly been attributed to a series of national campaigns to eliminate SIM cards and bank cards used for fraudulent purpose, and to crack down on criminal gangs and other illegal activities related to telecom and cyber fraud, said Du Hangwei, vice minister of public security.
Over the past year, China has addressed 394,000 cases involving fraudulent activities through telecommunications and the internet, and some 634,000 suspects involved in such illegal activities have been arrested, Du said. The numbers are up 28.5% and 76.7% respectively from last year, both hitting record highs.
A total of 12,000 gangs of smugglers were busted during the special campaign, leading to the arrest of 51,000 suspects, Du said.
Working along with other authorities, the Ministry of Public Security has busted 42,000 criminal groups involved in SIM card or bank card frauds, and investigated and punished 440,000 suspects, Du said.
China's public security organs also worked with financial institutions and payment service providers to establish a mechanism to stop victims from making payments to the suspects' accounts and freeze funds related to the fraudulent activities. The mechanism helped to prevent 1.5 million people from falling victim to such fraud and saved 329.1 billion yuan from crime.
With the help of an effective monitoring mechanism, the police managed to intercept a total of 14.8 billion yuan (US$2.33 billion) of funds, Liu Zhongyi, an official from the Ministry of Public Security, said at the press conference. In 2021, a total of 12 billion yuan was returned to victims of telecom and internet fraud.
China will continue to take a series of measures to strengthen the protection of personal privacy, such as improving regulations on personal information protection and supervising the operations of apps that collect users' personal information, as part of the efforts to prevent criminals from stealing personal information to commit fraud, said Sui Jing, an official of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
