A court in China yesterday sentenced 29 Taiwanese to prison for participating in a telecom fraud ring based in Armenia.
The suspects were sentenced by the Huadu District People’s Court in Guangzhou, the Guangdong Province Higher People’s Court said in a statement.
Ringleaders Chen Chun-chih (陳俊志) and Lin Tsung-ju (林宗儒) received jail terms of 10 to 11 years, while the rest were given terms of three to 10 years, the statement said.
The group posed as Chinese court officials to trick Chinese nationals into transferring money to the ring, it said.
The ring made about 1.66 million yuan (US$259,748) from July to August 2016, it added.
The statement did not mention whether an appeal had been filed.
The Taiwanese were part of a group of 129 fraud suspects arrested by Armenian police and sent to Guangzhou on Sept. 2, 2016, despite protests by the Taiwanese government, which insisted that they should be repatriated to Taiwan.
It was later determined that 78 members of the group are Taiwanese.
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