China captures 99,000 telecom fraud suspects in campaign

BEIJING - Chinese police have cracked 118,000 cases of telecom fraud and captured 99,000 suspects during their "Cloud Sword" operation launched in June, the Ministry of Public Security said Wednesday.

The figures marked a year-on-year increase of 62.7 percent and 135.6 percent, respectively, said Liu Zhongyi, director of the criminal investigation bureau under the ministry, at a press conference.

In the operation, the ministry sent police from 13 provincial regions to Cambodia, the Philippines and Laos, and the four sides cooperated to destroy a large number of fraud dens and brought a total of 2,553 telecom fraud suspects back to China.

"The pursuit of the fugitives achieved the best result in eight years," Liu said.

The number of fugitives captured during the campaign reached 243,000, 96 of whom were on the ministry's class-A wanted list, figures from the ministry show.

Police also busted 4,205 groups for offering fraudulent loans and 576 groups for scams under the pretext of "unfreezing national assets."

Liu said "Cloud Sword" has contributed to the continued stability of the overall social security situation. From January to November this year, the number of criminal cases filed nationwide dropped by 3.9 percent and the number of serious violent crimes dropped by 10.4 percent.

"Multiple departments have made joint effort to crack down on telecom and cyberspace fraud because more criminals have applied modern communication tools and online banking technology to commit fraud in recent years, causing serious economic losses to the victims," the ministry's spokesperson Guo Lin added.

The ministry vowed to make all-out efforts to arrest fugitives, curb the rising trend of new types of cyber crimes, and create a good social security environment for the people to celebrate New Year's Day and Spring Festival.