Man held for online vegetable shopping scam
The suspect, a man surnamed Ye, is caught by police in his home in Baoshan District on Monday.
A man has been detained for allegedly defrauding people by claiming to offer vegetables for sale, Shanghai police said on Thursday.
Police said they started their investigation on April 4 after receiving several reports from the public that they had paid to purchase vegetables from someone on the Internet but didn't get any deliveries.
The residents had joined a WeChat group in which a group member called "Xixi" said they could deliver vegetables, fruits, eggs and milk anywhere in Shanghai.
Since the prices seemed to be rather fair, many people in the group placed orders, and they were promised the products would be sent the next day.
However, the group was closed later that day, and Xixi went out of touch, police said.
The suspect was soon identified as a man surnamed Ye who lives in Baoshan District. He was caught on Monday.
Ye has defrauded people of over 19,000 yuan (US$3,000), and 9,900 yuan has been returned to those who placed orders, police said.
He has confessed that he has no provider of the advertised products and didn't deliver anything after receiving money.
Internet fraud
The case underscores a warning by Shanghai police about various Internet and telecom scams that have appeared recently with the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai.
In some cases, the scammers pretended to be from online shopping platforms and asked for people's bank card information claiming that their orders have been cancelled due to lockdowns in Shanghai, police said.
In other cases, the scammers tried to talk people into investing in certain vaccines against COVID-19 on some websites, and the victims ended up losing a lot of money.
