Four sentenced for Shanghai telecom fraud

SHANGHAI -- A Shanghai court sentenced four people to 10 to 14 years in prison on Monday for their involvement in a telecom fraud case.

The four defendants, Yu Xiaofei, Chen Yonghao, Wang Xuhui and Wu Yonghao, were convicted of fraud and fined between 300,000 yuan ($44,982) and 2 million yuan, according to the People's Court of the Jinshan District.

A total of 126 defendants were involved in the telecom fraud case. The court will deliver verdicts for other defendants soon.

The court said Yu and Chen used two companies they jointly ran to set up a telephone shopping platform to commit telecom fraud in April 2015.

Yu also asked Wang and Wu, who served as the general managers of the two companies, to come up with a plan to cheat customers by phone.

Members of the fraud ring randomly called people and notified them they had won "collectibles" such as agarwood bracelets and limited edition renminbi notes. They exaggerated the value and potential for appreciation of these items, then required recipients to pay large amounts in "taxes," "registration fees" and "membership fees" before they could claim the prizes, according to the court.

An investigation showed the "collectibles" were actually worthless.

The four defendants were arrested by Shanghai police in the city of Kunshan on Jan. 13, 2016.

The four people were considered the prime culprits in the telecom fraud ring, the court said.

They had obtained a total of 32.2 million yuan in illegal gains since 2015, it said.