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Police to crack down on fraud

Premier Yu Shyi-kun, center, Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan, third left, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan, third right, and other officials raise swords to show their determination to crack down on fraud, as the Cabinet officially launched an anti-fraud campaign yesterday. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

Announcing a new "anti-fraud calls hotline" service for the public, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that even members of his family have received phone calls from fraudsters attempting to extort money.

"The phone number of these kinds of fraudulent phone calls are increasing dramatically ... even my family have received such calls," Yu said.

"We are going to relentlessly crack down on this crime, and victims of calls from fraudsters a new number in and report them to authorities," he added.

The new number, which was established by the Cabinet, is 165. After dialing the number, a receptionist from the Cabinet will record the details of the incident and provide information to the victim. Although it is a 24-hour service number, it is not toll-free.

In addition to the Cabinet's newly-established number, the National Police Agency (NPA) in April set up a similar services for the public. It is a toll-free number: 0800-018-110.

"The hotline is based inside at agency's headquarters and has eight police officers to take calls from around the country," NPA Director-General Shieh Ing-dan (謝銀黨) said.

Statistics show that ever since police began cracking down on fraud rings three months ago, 5,431 fraud cases have been reported and over 1,372 suspects have been arrested.

Shieh and Yu said fraudsters would call and identify themselves as gangsters and inform the victims that "an enemy" of theirs has hired the them to "do something" to the victim unless money is paid into a specified bank account.

In addition to these kinds of threats, some fraud groups attempt to dupe people out of their by telling victims that they are elligable for tax returns, but a small deposit is required into a certain bank account ensure the transaction.

Recently, some fraudsters have been using different excuses, such as telling victims that members of their family have been kidnapped or that family members have been involved in a car accident and money should be wired to a bank account immediately.

Police say that fraud rings are always able to prevent their number from appearing on the victims cellphone or caller ID.

The NPA's Criminal Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said police discovered that most of these fraud rings are based in Xiamen, China, so their caller ID cannot be traced. In the meantime, the bureau has sent agents to Xiamen find the perpetrators, but officers cannot arrest them because they are out of their jurisdiction -- although they have collected sufficient evidence of their guilt.

"We have sought cooperation the Chinese police, but they told us that since these people are breaking Taiwanese laws, they can be of no help," Hou said. "Under the circumstances, they basically cannot do anything about it. We are still working on some other potential solutions regarding this problem," he added.
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