China captures 163,000 telecom, internet fraud suspects in 2019

Chinese police cracked 200,000 telecom and internet fraud cases and captured 163,000 suspects in 2019, Tuesday's China Police Daily reported.

The figures marked a year-on-year increase of about 52.7 percent and 123.3 percent, respectively.

Police across the country registered 782,000 telecom and internet fraud cases in total in 2019, down 3.1 percent from 2018.

The public security organ participated in a campaign against cross-border telecom fraud with foreign police. In a three-year joint operation with Spain, 229 suspects, including 222 from Taiwan, had been handed over to Chinese police by 2019.

Chinese police destroyed 90 overseas telecom fraud dens in 2019 in cooperation with police forces from Southeast Asian countries including Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and arrested 4,276 suspects.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) alerted 1.7 million potential victims of telecom and internet fraud, dissuaded over 1 million victims, and recovered 5.6 billion yuan (about $812 million) in direct economic losses.

Together with the People's Bank of China, the MPS froze 555,000 bank accounts involved in telecom and internet fraud last year, and saved 37.4 billion yuan for fraud victims.