Guangdong police smash China's first malicious call gangs

Guangdong police have successfully smashed China's first chain of malicious call gangs and their extortion operations, and blocked over 830,000 illegal accounts operating in Sichuan, Henan, and Guangdong provinces, reports thepaper.cn.

Tools for criminal purpose captured by the police [Photo: WeChat of GDPPRB]

Guangdong police launched the campaign after receiving complaints from residents being bombarded with calls. People targeted by the gangs would receive up to thousands of nuisance calls and messages. In March, a victim in Guangzhou complained that his phone crashed because he received so many calls. He also received text messages from a gang telling him to send them 500 yuan (about 78 U.S. dollars) to stop the abusive calls and messages. He paid them the money, and the calls and messages stopped.

Tools for criminal purpose captured by the police [Photo: WeChat of GDPPRB]

Police found that the criminal gangs had made 1.2 billion calls to 4.3 million mobile phone numbers. Employees at an online telecommunication platform provided the platform to bombard the victim's phones, while a separate team was responsible for coordinating the blackmailing and extortion work.

Guangdong police worked in coordination with police in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and other cities to move against the gangs after they developed an organizational chart of the groups and collected evidence for a prosecution.

Officers with the Guangdong police said they will continue to crackdown on people engaging in malicious calls. They reminded the public to contact the police if they receive calls such as these.