Mysterious gold dealers turn out to be scam suspects
Some of the gold bullions seized as evidence in the case
One of the suspects poses outside the gold store where he and his accomplice purchased the gold objects so as to sell them to a second-hand gold dealer.
Three men have been taken into custody for allegedly providing money laundering services to telecom scammers based overseas by dealing in gold objects, Shanghai police said.
Police in suburban Jinshan District started their investigation at the end of last month after receiving a tip from the public that two men were suspiciously dealing with a great number of gold objects.
The two first purchased the objects from a gold store on Weiling Road and then immediately tried to sell them to a second-hand gold dealer across the street, police said.
Police took swift action and caught the two along with a third suspect in the gold dealership.
From their investigation, police found that the two, surnamed Zhang and Wang respectively, who are not from Shanghai, met someone on the Internet last month, who instructed them to do some dodgy tasks for monetary rewards.
They first took two bank cards from an unknown person and then flew to Shanghai on the evening of June 26 to meet the third suspect in the case, a man surnamed Chen, police revealed.
Chen instructed them to purchase gold with money in the bank cards and then sell it for cash. All three were aware that the money in the cards was of suspicious origins, according to the police.
Police have seized the evidence, including 4,220 grams of gold objects which were purchased with 1.8 million yuan (US$266,000) in the two bank cards.
