A man and a woman in Taichung were sentenced for their involvement in a fraud case that had 117 victims in Canada, the US and other countries.
Six people were arrested last year, including a 38-year-old man surnamed Huang (黃) and a 35-year-old woman surnamed Hsieh (謝), when the Taichung City Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Corps officers raided a property in the city’s Beitun District (北屯).
Police found computers and cellphones at the property where the suspects allegedly had been engaging in fraud targeting Chinese living overseas, Taichung District Court documents showed.
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
Huang and Hsieh allegedly pretended to be members of a telecommunications company, falsely claiming that the victim’s phone number had been used for criminal activity in China, and that they would assist them in reporting the case to the Chinese Public Security Bureau, an investigation found.
They would then make a second phone call impersonating a Chinese officer, who would say that the victim was suspected of involvement in money laundering and that their assets would be frozen.
Hsieh also hired a 33-year-old university graduate surnamed Chen (陳), who is fluent in English, to speak to the victims in English as a means of adding legitimacy to their claims of representing a large telecommunications company, the documents showed.
Hsieh had previously served eight years for fraud, and had joined Huang shortly after release from prison to commit fraud again, the police said.
Hsieh and Chen received six and three-year prison sentences respectively for their involvement in the case.
During the raid, Hsieh and Huang had attempted to destroy the evidence, and threw phones out the window, police said, adding that they allegedly had defrauded people of NT$10 million in total.
The court has not yet ruled on Huang’s case.
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