Beijing police advises against accepting overseas phone calls as fraud increases
By Xu Zhesheng | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-07-03 21:36
Beijing police has advised the public to disable the function on their phones that allows them to receive overseas calls, if they don't have such needs, to reduce the risk of being scammed and safeguard financial security.
"In recent years, there has been an increasing number of telecom fraud cases, particularly those involving the use of overseas phone numbers. To effectively curb the high incidence of telecom fraud caused by foreign phone calls, we suggest you disable the function to avoid fraud," Beijing police said in a post on its official social media WeChat.
The three major telecom operators, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, have all launched services to intercept overseas calls, it said.
Prosecutors nationwide approved the arrest of 10,923 people on suspicion of fraud in the first quarter of this year, ranking second on the list of all recorded crimes, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
According to the SPP annual work report in March, the number of people prosecuted for cybercrime-related offenses has shot up in recent years. The number of people prosecuted for illegally buying and selling phone cards and bank cards, and helping others withdraw and transfer money increased from 137 in 2018 to 130,000 last year.
A report issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Law in May estimated that the number of online crimes, including telecom frauds, will continue to rise this year. It said cross-border fraud has also been uncovered more frequently.
The report cited data showing that some 594,000 fraud cases were solved by police from April 2021 to July 2022, and the number of people who aided fraudsters, including those who sold them bank cards or helped design illegal apps, grew rapidly during that period.
Any calls claiming to be from "public security agencies", "government departments" or "social security bureaus" requesting confidentiality for the calls, cooperation in investigations, fund inspections, money transfers or filling out payment passwords are all scams, Beijing police said.
