Credit card fraud gang goes on trial

By Xu Fang

FOUR alleged members of a massive gang went on trial yesterday on charges they defrauded an undisclosed number of Shanghai residents out of nearly 10 million yuan (US$1.25 million) using cell phone short messages.

Police say the 89-member gang was led by two Taiwan natives, who were only identified in court yesterday by the nicknames Rouzong and Doujiang.

Other members of the gang will be tried later.

Prosecutors told the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday the gang sent potential victims a short message saying their credit card had been used to make a large purchase. Those who replied to the message were then convinced to move their money into another bank account to avoid further losses, but the new account actually belonged to the gang.

Xu Yangshan, 28, told the court Rouzong and Doujiang asked him to send short messages to local cell phone users from Xiamen, Fujian Province last October. "The message content and mobile phone numbers of the victims were all provided by Rouzong and Doujiang. I was only in charge of sending the messages with mobile phones they gave to me," Xu said, adding he was never paid the 1,500 yuan a month he was promised.

After receiving the message, many credit card owners would call a phone number included in the note to say they hadn't made a large purchase with their cards. "The bank offers the service to send me a message as a reminder if I make a purchase with the credit card. So I didn't suspect fraud when receiving the message. But I was anxious because I didn't spend the money. So I called the number offered in the message," a victim surnamed Liu told the court.

The man answering the phone told Liu that her personal information might have been stolen and somebody else had applied for a card in her name. He asked her to call the police, and provided the number for her. When she called that number, a fake policeman gave her a number for the bank's credit card center. The center then asked Liu to transfer the money in her account to another account, where it would be safe.

"The money drawn out of the accounts would be remitted to Taiwan through underground banks," said Shi Wenhua, one of the four defendants along with his girlfriend Jin Yun, 30.