Three local residents who allegedly pretended to be recruitment agents for Shanghai Disney Resort to swindle more than 3 million yuan ($463,000) out of at least 200 victims have been detained, said the Pudong New Area police yesterday.
A man surnamed Li went to a police station in Pudong on March 26 to report that he was defrauded out of 13,000 yuan by a man surnamed Shi, who offered to help him land a job at the amusement park, which is scheduled to open on June 16.
Li told police that he was a taxi driver and got in touch with Shi after he saw his picture on a Disney recruitment ad.
After Shi promised to get him a job at Disney that would be easier than driving a taxi for a similar salary, he quit his position and paid him an agency fee.
He was later hired by the resort as a cleaner, a job that paid only 3,000 yuan a month, much less than he earned as a taxi driver, Li said.
When he spoke to colleagues who were recruited at the same time, Li was told that they did not go through agencies because they needed only to drop off their resumes at local human resources service centers.
Li then went to police and an investigation was launched, which led to the arrest of Shi and his two accomplices on Wednesday last week.
In the interrogation that followed, police found that a female suspect surnamed Xu, who had worked for a labor agency, was the mastermind.
She told jobseekers that she knew senior executives at Disney and hired Shi and the other suspect, surnamed Wang, to help her defraud the victims, police said.
The trio merely collected the victims' resumes and handed them in at local human resources service centers.
Some victims were invited to attend interviews organized by Disney, believing that Xu was responsible for arranging it.
Xu charged those who were not hired around 10,000 yuan for 20 days of training with an organization in Zhuhai City in Guangdong Province.
Officials said many of those duped may not yet realize they have been defrauded, as only 40 people have made police complaints.
The investigation continues.