Police arrest 50 suspects in detail for cross-border charity fraud

Taipei, July 27 (CNA) 50 suspects arrested for cross-border fraud ring donated to charity from NT $ 34.09 million (US $ 1138,000) for fraudulent Taiwanese people The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said it was done at a press conference on Wednesday.

The system of a software company that manages the funding databases of various charities in Taiwan has been hacked, said Yang Shih-yu, deputy commander of CIB’s First Investigation Corps.

He added that the data breach provided the fraud ring with information about the victim, such as phone numbers and the amount of money donated to charities on a regular basis.

According to Mr. Yang, the Down Syndrome Society Taiwan and the Digiama Social Welfare Foundation, which belong to the famous Taichung Dajia Mazu Temple, were one of the charities that scammers used their names.

Detective rings that called victims from China tricked them into believing that the donations they made were not made. After that, following instructions from the scammers, he used an ATM to change the settings of the remittance details, and as a result, the donation was sent to a bank account owned by a member of the ring, Yang said.

Since July 2021, at least 188 people have been fooled into making “donations” to 45 charities, Yang said.

He added that a total of 48 suspects allegedly responsible for withdrawing cash from their bank accounts were arrested between September 2021 and May 2022.

Further investigation revealed that some of the victims were fooled into sending money to multiple electronic wallet accounts owned by a company based in Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City, on the online shopping platform Shopee.

Two men named Lo and Chen were arrested on May 24, when the CIB attacked the company’s office, Yang said. Interfere with police investigations.

Before being released on bail, Law and Chen were referred to the New Taipei Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for an investigation on charges of fraud and money laundering, Yang said.

If convicted, the two men face up to seven years in prison.