Bank scamers awaits sentence

By Huang Zhiling and Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-12 07:33

CHENGDU: Three people who used an automatic teller machine to deposit 120,000 yuan ($17,600) in counterfeit banknotes and then withdrew more than 80,000 yuan in genuine notes were brought before the Chongqing intermediate court.

The three, Qiu Guo from Chongqing, and Yu Sheng and Su Poyu, both from Sichuan province, were charged with forgery and bank theft.

They will be sentenced soon, a court employee told China Daily Thursday.

Prosecutors told the court the three shared a rented apartment in Chongqing, and made a living by forging ID cards.

In June 2004, two men from Sichuan asked Qiu to forge ID cards, which they wanted to use to obtain 500 bankcards. They promised to pay Qiu 100,000 yuan and gave him a deposit of 20,000 yuan.

Qiu, Yu and Su took photographs of people at Internet cafes, paying each 20 yuan. They made about 50 fake ID cards and asked the people in the ID cards to apply for a total 500 bankcards.

When the three handed the bankcards to the two Sichuan men on July 15, they could not be paid. The two men explained they tried to deposit counterfeit money at an ATM but something went wrong and they could not withdraw genuine cash.

As compensation, they decided to teach Qiu, Yu and Su how to deposit fake cash in return for genuine cash. They were given fake banknotes with a face value of more than 300,000 yuan, about 200 bankcards, and wigs.

The three succeeded in depositing 120,000 yuan in fake notes, and then withdrew 86,200 yuan from four ATMs. They then fled Chongqing.

The bank reported to police. However, the three could not be identified by the ATM cameras because of their wigs.

They were eventually caught in February following a tip-off.

In April 2004, the Jiangbei district court in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, sentenced Huang Junli to 12 years in prison for depositing fake money in banks and withdrawing more than 170,000 yuan.

The forgers had managed to break the security codes appearing on the banknotes.