Taichung prosecutors yesterday charged a couple with selling people’s personal information to criminal fraud rings, which mostly targeted victims in Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia.
Police officers during a raid against a telecom fraud ring last year found files containing the names and private information of people in China.
Investigators suspected that the information was used to defraud Chinese nationals via telephone calls, and eventually tracked down a woman surnamed Lu (呂) and her boyfriend, surnamed Chou (周), Taichung police officer Chang Chih-hsiung (張志維) said.
Police raided the couple’s residence in Taichung late last year, seizing 94 prepaid SIM phone cards, seven mobile phones and an unspecified amount of cash, Chang said.
Investigators found that the couple had been registering prepaid SIM cards using stolen personal information before selling the cards to criminal groups for about NT$300,000 per month, Chang said.
Prosecutors charged the couple with contravening the Criminal Code and the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例).
Investigators said Lu started an online business in 2021, selling luxury bags, designer watches and foreign cosmetic products.
She later compiled the private information of her customers and allegedly asked Chou to negotiate with criminal groups to sell the data, aware that they would be used in telecom scam operations, Chang said.
The couple later allegedly contacted criminals specializing in the theft of personal data to buy more personal information to sell to the fraud rings, Chang said.
Investigators said they found transaction records containing the personal information of people from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand and other southeast Asian countries.
Lu registered prepaid SIM cards using people’s personal data without their knowledge and sold them to criminal groups, Chang said.
She continued to run her online business in the meantime, and only Chou contacted the fraud rings, Chang added.
Police last year started surveilling the couple, and recorded a conversation in which Chou allegedly told a member of a criminal group that he had been selling them 200 to 300 SIM cards per month, and wanted to expand the operation, Chang said.
A man unknowingly purchased a SIM card that had been registered by the couple and later received a summons involving a drug trafficking case, as prosecutors investigating that case traced the number to him, Chang said.
The man was released after questioning, Chang added.
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