Couple accused of defrauding 8-year-old girl
One of the suspects caught in Bijie in Guizhou Province earlier this month.
A couple alleged to have forced an 8-year-old girl into paying them over 40,000 yuan (US$6,128) online have been detained by police in Shanghai.
The 20-year-old man surnamed Xiong and an 18-year-old woman surnamed Wang are said to have threatened to tell the girl’s mother about money she was spending on livestreamers.
Police said the girl, who lives in Yangpu District, watched livestreams on Douyin (known overseas as TikTok) on her mother’s mobile phone and paid the streamers generously from her mother’s Alipay account.
She is said to have told police she sneaked a peak at her mother’s phone when she was paying through Alipay and thus knew the password.
The couple, who watched the same livestreaming shows, found out that she was a little girl and spending a lot of money “honoring” streamers, and decided to defraud her, police said.
They made the girl add them on WeChat and pay them money by threatening to tell her mother about her online spending.
However, the mother found out what was going on and took her daughter to the police in September.
The suspects were caught in Bijie in Guizhou Province earlier this month, police said.
