Hunan Police Uncover Major Telecom Fraud Network

According to Odaily, Hunan police recently announced the uncovering of a significant telecom fraud case involving the rental of phone numbers and WeChat accounts to overseas scam groups. Earlier this month, authorities arrested 62 suspects across 86 cities in 18 provinces, with the total amount involved exceeding 4 million yuan. In August 2023, the Linwu County Public Security Bureau, acting on leads provided by the Ministry of Public Security, discovered that individuals in the area were using mobile ports to conduct telecom network fraud. The Linwu police quickly formed a special task force to investigate. Upon learning that suspects, including an individual identified as Zhou, were actively engaged in telecom fraud, officers set up surveillance in areas where the suspects were known to operate and apprehended five individuals. Preliminary investigations revealed that since July 2023, Zhou and others had been purchasing and renting multiple phone cards, setting up a simple mobile network at home to assist overseas fraudsters in making scam calls. Renting phone numbers to overseas scam groups is known as 'mobile port' fraud, while renting WeChat accounts is referred to as 'PC end' fraud. Task force officers stated that they extracted detailed lists from the suspects' computers, which included contact information for number vendors, QQ accounts used in the crimes, times of the offenses, and transaction methods. The suspects settled payments using virtual currency. Further investigation revealed that suspect Xia and others used Alipay accounts to pay rental fees for phone numbers and WeChat accounts to numerous vendors across 18 provinces, implicating over 100 additional suspects.