37 arrested in telephone-fraud sting

Police in Guangdong province announced on Monday that they have detained 37 suspects in the crackdown on a major telephone fraud gang in seven cities in Guangdong, Sichuan, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.

Huang Guo, deputy director of the Foshan Bureau of Public Security, said, "Police also seized 23 computers, 200 cellphones and more than 9,000 cellphone SIM cards, plus a large number of other telecommunication equipment and bank cards in joint operations that were launched on July 3."

Huang told a news conference in Foshan on Monday that the joint operation, which involved more than 400 police officers and 100 police cars, was launched in the cities of Foshan, Huizhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan in Guangdong, Guang'an in Sichuan, Xinyu in Jiangxi and Quanzhou in Fujian at the same time on the morning of July 3.

"The suspects passed themselves off as police officers, judges, bank employees or other law enforcement personnel to swindle people out of money via telephone in recent months," Huang said.

The gang is alleged to have defrauded its victims out of about 10 million yuan ($1.63 million) in the past year, Huang said.

"The crackdown on the major telephone fraud gang has dealt a heavy blow to the illegal telephone fraud events that used to be active in Guangdong," he added.