What’s new: The Chinese Embassy in Thailand has issued a warning about a scam in which Chinese citizens living abroad have been tricked into staging their own kidnapping so criminals can con their families out of money.
The embassy has recently received several requests for help from Chinese nationals studying in places like Australia, Canada and Japan who had ended up in Thailand after falling for the scam, according to a statement published Tuesday on its website.
In one example, a Chinese student in Australia received a call from a someone pretending to be a health official in Sydney who claimed the student’s phone number had been linked to fraudulent activities. The person threatened to revoke the student’s visa if they did not cooperate with the “investigation.”
The student was then told to fly to Thailand and cross the border to Myanmar, during which time they were required to take photos or videos of themselves pretending to be bound, beaten and crying out to be rescued. The scammers then sent the images to the student’s parents and asked for a large ransom.
The background: In December, a 17-year-old Chinese student surnamed Zhuang was reported missing in the U.S. and later found to have fallen for the scam. In that case, his family was conned out of $80,000.
Previously, law enforcement in Shanghai and other parts of China have issued alerts about these “virtual kidnapping” cases, which have involved ransoms ranging from 1 million yuan ($138,000) to 15 million yuan, according to a November report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
