Scammers behind fake foreign exchange trading website nailed
Some of the suspects are caught by police in one of the gang's offices on April 27, 2018.
Over 100 suspects have been caught for allegedly running a fake foreign exchange trading website, Shanghai police said on Wednesday.
A total of 45 victims from all over the country have lost about 11 million yuan (US$1.7 million) to the scammers, police said.
The fake website was rigged in such a way that most people trading there kept losing money, while a handful of people who profited were unable to withdraw the money and eventually lost it all, according to the police.
Police in Songjiang District started their investigation in March this year when a resident reported that he invested 250,000 yuan using the website and ended up with only US$3.
The resident, a man surnamed Li who started investing in January, said he once profited 50,000 to 60,000 yuan, but shortly after plunged into huge losses and grew suspicious of the website.
Li said he was introduced to the website by a contact on the Internet who claimed that trading foreign exchange is much more profitable than investing in the domestic stock market.
Police said the fraudsters found victims on WeChat, disguising as young women and targeting men about 30 years of age, and then enticing them to invest using the website.
The gang was headquartered in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, with a developed network of salesmen, supervisors, managers and strategic planners, police said.
A total of 111 suspects were caught from Fujian and Guangdong provinces and Shanghai’s Yangpu District at the end of April.
Some of the suspects have been arrested, while others are under detention and some have been released, police said.
