- Suspects rounded up after people complain of being duped into making donations to support non-existent temples
- One woman says she handed over US$4,600 after being told that charitable gesture would help her live to be 400
Police in southeast China have detained 100 people on suspicion of being part of a criminal network that cheated members of the public out of 50 million yuan (US$7 million) by preying on their superstitions and generosity.
Authorities in Ningguo, Anhui province launched an investigation in May after receiving a number of complaints about the activities of several groups posing as fortune-tellers on social media platforms like Weibo, financial news outlet Caijing reported on its website on Tuesday.
One of the groups, which operated on the Twitter-like service under the name “Kanxiang Zen Master”, was run by a local man surnamed Zhang and had 12 million followers, the report said.
A number of the gangs were registered as media companies and operated as semi-professional organisations with formal recruiting procedures and regular conferences to plan their fraudulent activities, the report said, adding that they had been operating for at least two years.
Police in July staged a series of raids to round up the suspects and confiscated associated equipment, including computers, vehicles and mobile phones, the report said.
Authorities in Ningguo have appealed for more victims to come forward.
A separate report by Shanghai-based news outlet Thepaper.cn said that some of the suspects also used e-commerce sites such as Taobao and the messaging service WeChat to promote their fortune-telling services.
Taobao is owned by Alibaba Group, which also owns the South China Morning Post.
In one case, a woman from the city of Changshu in Jiangsu said she made multiple payments – totalling about 33,000 yuan – to a fortune-teller she met on WeChat who said the money would be used to buy incense for use in offerings to the gods.
She said she reported the alleged fraud after starting to doubt the fortune-teller’s claims, including one that said if she made the donations she could live for up to 400 years.
Alibaba, Weibo and Tencent, which owns WeChat, have been contacted for comment.
Source: SCMP
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