Mainland urges Taiwan to give fraud suspects 'punishment they deserve'

20 fraud suspects from Taiwan arrive in Taoyuan airport in Taiwan on Friday, April 15, 2016 after being deported from Malaysia. [Photo/IC]

EXPORTING FRAUD

The people of Taiwan have been aware of phone scams and for this reason, around 2002, fraud rings from Taiwan began to target mainlanders.

These fraud gangs are oldhands at writing convincing scripts and devising new methods to cheat victims out of their money and information, said Zhang Jun from the criminal investigation department of the MPS. Some, he added, even create mirror websites of mainland judicial agencies to further support their back stories.

Authorities on the mainland and Taiwan worked hard to improve cooperation and stamp out telecom fraud across the Strait. However, rather than packing up and "going straight," many gangs just relocated to Southeast Asia, Africa and Oceania.

Since 2011, police from both sides have arrested more than 7,700 suspects implicated in telecom fraud gangs working in Southeast Asia, with about 4,600 of them from Taiwan.

"To hide from the police, many telecom fraud rings established themselves far from Chinese eyes, like Kenya in this case. But we are confident that we will find them, no matter where they are," said Zhang.