Yeh also called on the government to pass legislation that requires a new telecoms technology to have in place countermeasures for the government to use to prevent and detect crimes committed using it.
Cheng Jui-lung (鄭瑞隆), dean of CPU’s Department and Graduate Institute of Criminology, said the government suffers from structural problems that make it hard to hunt down fraud syndicates.
“As the government is subject to bureaucratic budget and procurement rules, it’s not as adaptable as fraudsters in applying new technologies. That many syndicates behind the scams have cross-border networks to carry out long-distance operations also makes it difficult for police to track them down,” Cheng said.
Despite all this, Cheng said the government should cooperate with telecoms operators to work out measures that could locate telecoms equipment rooms at the transmitting end and intercept or cut off telecommunications, as well as to negotiate with other countries on agreements for mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
“The government is not the only one that should take the blame for the increasing crimes. Raising public awareness of crime and advising people not to hand over personal data to fraud syndicates to set up dummy accounts in exchange for profit is also an effective way to deter the con men,” he said.
Frank Huang (黃富源), a professor at CPU’s Crime Prevention Department and adjunct professor at National Taipei University’s Graduate School of Criminology said the government should allocate more resources to collecting the latest information on the methods being used in fraud cases.
“The police should publicize information on new scam tactics and change the 165 anti-fraud phone line from just receiving calls to educating the public on how not to get conned,” Huang said.
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