The cost of a human life in Philippines is worth : $500
According to the owner of the Philippines scam group, the price of Chinese police has doubled tenfold to US$5,000.
Chinese police has been investigating a cross border telecommunication scam in Quezon City, Philippines with more than 400 scammers in the building.
In the span of 1 year, the Chinese police have captured and arrested more than 1000 suspects in Philippines alone. Scam companies then issued an assassination order to the Chinese police.
It was revealed that the chinese policemen are not allowed to carry their weapon in a foreign land as such the policeman are constantly wary of the possibility of being killed while on duty. In order to protect the citizens of China, we see the sacrifices of the chinese police put up againist the telecommunications fraud.
↑The scene of one the telecommunications arest in Quezon City, Philippines
Confession from a Chinese police
I am a police officer in Xiaogan, Hubei.close to Wuhan. Police officers eat, sleep, and investigate telecommunications scrime
A series of weird fraud cases started occurring in Xiaogan since March 2019. First, Li from Yingcheng, a county-level city, was defrauded of 1 million yuan by investment and wealth management fraud. Then, other counties and districts also successively appeared in large-scale electronic fraud cases of the same type.
The strange thing is that in the past, such cases were mainly aimed at people with low education and who wanted to get rich quickly. Losses were mostly tens of thousands or tens of thousands of yuan. However, in the several cases that broke out this time, the victims either had a high number of victims. Education level, or a entrepreneur with a certain social status, the loss is mostly hundreds of thousands, and some even exceeded one million yuan.
What's even more outrageous is that according to the victim's statement is that victims were denied entry to the wechat investment and wealth management if they have less than 200,000RMB capital on hand. Targetting at the high-end victims is one of the goals and characteristic of this group of scammers.
Bascially, the scam tactics are almost similar to the "Pig Slaughter Scheme". In a regular scam, victims were invited to the platform to invest however but such scams, victims are invited to a group chat hosted by a mentor who gave tips on investments subsequently squander victim's savings away.
The bureau immediately organized a task force, and after some investigation operations, they discovered the location of their operation. At the same time, the tasks force also discovered that there were many other electronic fraud cases with different tactics and styles which are also related to the location of the den. In other words, there is far more than one fraud group leading to the building that they are investigating.
As cross border fraud cases are a lot harder to crack therefore the bureau reported to the provincial department and the Ministry of Public Security. The Ministry of Public Security quickly approved and agreed to organize police from many places across the country to form a task force, and we were also involved.
Life of policeman in overseas
About a month ago in Manila, right in our office based, you could see a couple of old police officers who were looking at the computers silently. Some were seen chatting on the phone loudly, documents were shattered all around the couch. Strench of cigarettes smells surrounding the entire place, strench of ramen leftovers and the men's socks. The small office space is mixed into an indescribable place hovering in this temporary headquarters, becoming more and more intense as time passed.
The difficulty of transnational case handling is a lot more than anyone could imagined. Don’t look at the fact that we usually call ourselves "superior detectives" at home and have a set of ideas for solving cases; once we go abroad, we are just a group of weak, helpless and pitiful ordinary people without guns. Nor do we have law enforcement powers, and can only collect evidence. On the one hand, it is provided to colleagues in China for judgment and analysis, and on the other hand, evidence is provided to the local police to assist in solving the case.
Having lived in the temporary office space for some time and just as we were frustrated with the progress of the case, two good things came to us that literally lift our spirits up
First, the scammer who defrauded our victim were arrested while returning home to China; Second, The Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security received a tipoff to an electronic fraud den in Quezon City, the Philippines, and ordered the Hubei police to take over. The tipoff actually came from within the scammer group-that is to say, there was a "spy" in the scammer group!
After gathering all preparations, we and the whistleblower Xiao Liu took over. We met at the beach because there were fewer people and it was safer. Philippines allows guns to be legally owned, residents generally have guns, but foreigners like us who do not have guns are always extra cautious when going out.
Building that consists 300 scammers of telecommunications scam
Our mole, Xiao Liu decided to betray the scam company he worked for because he was eager to get out to retaliate after being treated in a inhumane way. On the contrary, he was "freed".
A couple of months ago, Liu was in Shanghai looking for a job and was recruited to Philippines for the high pay salary. He was not aware that the job advertised was actually a fraud company.
The "Company" was established in the high-end office building in Quezon City-Global Trade Center Building. There are nearly 400 people in the "company", all of whom are Chinese electronic scammers without exception. The logistics system of the "company" was said to be very complete, covering board, lodging and transportation, so Xiao Liu and other "colleagues" will only need to focus on deceiving just like any other salesperson.
Every morning, Liu and his colleagues were dragged into the office building by a bus and started a busy day of electronic fraud. The sound of the keyboard and the phone calls were extremely loud. Every cheer and laughter accompanied him. The desperate scream of an ordinary victim and even the disintegration of a family.
At night, under the supervision and command of the manager, the exhausted Liu walked through the company in silence, boarded the bus, and returned to the dormitory. There is no freedom, no friends, no future. In the boring life day after day, he has heard many voices: the cry of trying to escape but being caught and beaten, the scolding of being reprimanded and insulting for poor performance, and lying to his family members of safety. There is no difference of being in jail.... But he understands that in order to escape, he must gain the trust of his managers. Once it fails, all kinds of tortures such as water prisons, electric shock batons, and small black houses would be implemented as an punishment for the scammers.
As a result, Xiao Liu pretended to work actively and slowly gained a larger space for activities. According to him, the "company" focus on long term investment.
Upon deceiving the victim into the investment group to attend the class, scammers were taught not to get the victim to pay for the class and/or invest anytime soon. Instead, the Company would spent the next two or three months of brainwashing convincing the victims they the investment will reap good profits.
Since the investment trading platform and virtual currency trading platform are specially customized and developed by the "company" at a high price, their codes are highly similar to the real platform, and they have a "back door" for human intervention. Therefore, the "stock speculator" are somewhat the same only that the fake platform is slower by the legit platform.
Seeing that the new batch of "victims" have been manipulated for several months, Liu, who could not bear to scam the victims as such he reported to the police.
According to Liu, his office is not the only company that does fraud in the building. There are at least 300 other scammers belonging to different scam companies who worked in the same building. Liu revealed that the scam companies shared the same money laundering channels, accommodation arrangements and are protected by both the local authority and the mafia of the area.
In order to get more information from the company, the mole was asked to go into deeper findings.
Inside the fraud building
It was August 2019, according to the research and deployment of the headquarters, my leader and I acted as the domestic leaders of electronic fraud, and went to the Global Trade Center Building to inspect and investigate the syndicate den. Before that, in order not to reveal anything, Liu and us had a long communication, and finally we gradually entered the place.
Unlike China, where guards are usually old grandpa like, the building guards are big, strong and fierce, with live ammunition. These guards also guarded by guard dogs led by the guards. Through connection with the company, we managed to enter into the building to investigate
The decoration is simple, the lights are bright, and hundreds of computers are filled with young people in their twenties. It's like a huge Internet cafe, only that its made for scams.
According to the manager, this is an office space remodeled by the boss for nearly 100 million yuan. It can not only provide accommodation, protection, money laundering and other one-stop services for the gangs, but can even customize and develop corresponding frauds according to the needs of different gangs. The platform and software can truly make fraud gangs move in with bags and worry-free fraud.
"Let us know what you need and we will do for you, we have everythiing under control inclusive of a fake website, fake documents." Said the management of the building facility.
The management of the building also said there was a couple who earned 2 million in 2 months. The smaller company will only need to contribute 20% of the fraud income to enjoy many convenient conditions, and for the "operator" responsible f of fraud, there are three levels of 3%, 5%, and 10%. The percentage of commission, fraud of more than 10 million, can be divided into 1 million...
While exclaiming, we silently remembered the internal situation of the "company". After leaving the building, we immediately reported to the superiors and proceeded to formulate the arrest plan, and decided to wipe them all before they scam more victims.
Just when we were full of confidence and working enthusiastically, I received a call from Liu. On the other side of the phone, he whispered in horror and anxiously: "He...they want to kill me, save me..."
Boss Huang is a outstanding young entrepreneur
The costs of a human life is 500 USD in Philippines.
While we pretended to be scammers and entered the "company" for inspection, our informant Liu began to actively instigate colleagues in the "company" to help us obtain more valuable information. The team leader secretly reported Liu to the top of the company.
In the expense of a betrayer, the Company issued an assassin order to Liu. He got frightened and ran out overnight with several colleagues. Wthout hesitation, we tried all means to sent them back home as per agreed.
In the next 2 months, Under the unified command of the Ministry of Public Security, we assisted the police in Fujian, Hebei, and Shaanxi, coordinated with relevant local departments to launch network collections in the Philippines, and arrested 3 telecommunications fraud dens one after another. One of the dens is actually closely related to the "company" in the Global Trade Center building.
Under our investigated, the identity of Boss Huang gradually surfaced: he was graduated from the Department of International Finance of Yang'en University, chairman of a Beijing Investment Co., Ltd., senior and outstanding young entrepreneur, as early as 2012, he had hundreds of millions of assets.
It was also from 2012 that Boss Huang used illegal means to make money in the precious metal trading and Internet commodity futures spot trading markets. In 2017, when the national policy was tightened and the Internet spot futures trading place was completely cleaned up and rectified, Boss Huang led the core employees of the original company to the Philippines to "secondary entrepreneurship" under the guise of blockchain.
Tt turns out that Boss Huang is the big boss in many serious industries such as real estate and seafood restaurants in the Philippines, and he is also a celebrity in the local Chinese circle. His prestige and connections are very prominent, but secretly not only does he personally engaged in fraudulent activities, but also recruited fraudulent teams to settle in, this kind of "direct management" and "joining" mixed structure, like an "incubation base" for telecommunications network fraud.
This is the boss behind the "company" and our mortal enemy. I carefully looked at the picture of Boss Huang: wearing glasses and a moustache, he looked gentle, like Xiao Yang in "Detective Chinatown". But what I know is that under his gentle appearance, there is the heart of a wild beast, bloodthirsty and greedy person.
As his subordinate, Liu escaped and fraud den was taken away one after another, Boss Huang, who sensed that something is not adding up finally decided to do something.
Boss Huang issued an killing order on us
In order to solve the case as soon as possible, a victim in Guangdong pretended to be an investor and re-entered theHuang Boss fraud group. He pretended to attend lectures, flattered, and praised every day, but actually reported the group dynamics to us in real time. .
The desperate fraud group were preparing two types of preparations: issued a killing order bounty of 5000USD in the black market on us hoping that we would retract. On the other hand, Boss Huang speed up his progress of the fraud hoping to finished off with the last batch of their victims for that week including our mole from Guangdong.
Under the threat of assassination, the leader gathered all of us together for a meeting, repeatedly emphasizing safety disciplines: you can’t go out alone, drink alcohol, and don’t go to crowded places...
Without weapons to protect oneself, the case must be investigated and cracked to the end. At this point, I was not expecting the movie like scene would be a real life experience for me.
The race againist the clock - once the money remitted into Boss Huang system; the funds would be remitted to various places and it would be a lot more difficult to retrieve them back. In order to suceed, we have to be one step faster than Boss Huang. We resisted the pressure and coordinated with the Philippine National Immigration Service and the local police through the embassy, and agreed on ajoint operation.
However, what we never expected was that just before we were ready for the operation, the situation took a turn for the worse-the local police suddenly refused our request to search because they discovered that the "company" hiding in the Global Trade Center building had formal law implemented prior that the government will not supervise and inspect its business content.
We did not give up, instead, we compiled the information overnight, hurriedly visited relevant department officials, and even directly photographed the criminal evidence of the "company" defrauding Chinese people on the Philippine Gaming Commission. On the next following day, the committee finally let go and revoked the "company"'s gaming license. This means that Boss Huang has lost his only trump card.
While the license was signed and revoked, Boss Huang received the tipoff the news and decided to speed up the process by inviting the victims to invest on the same day hoping to get a large amount of funds.
We knew that the news has been leaked. Not long ago, our colleagues in the north had failed and fell short because of this action... The lesson is still very much vivid, in order to stabilize Boss Huang, we tricked him and deliberately released false news by saying that the operation will be postponed by one day.
The Arrest and Operation
December, on Christmas Eve, the whole country of the Philippines is immersed in the joy of the festival. This day was also the day when the Quezon City Police Department held its annual family gathering. Hundreds of policemen, policemen, gathered in the compound, surrounded by bonfires, drinking, and dancing and singing. Just when the entire police station was having fun, we were squatting in the parking lot of the Quezon City Police Department eating a boxed lunch, waiting for the end of the party.
Delaying one day means that the operation may fail completely. Under our communication, our Filipino colleagues agreed to follow us to attack the den after the party.
It was 10pm, when various Christmas activities caused serious congestion on the road.. It was only a dozen kilometers from the police station to the den, but the map showed that it was congested for one hour. By then, I am afraid that people have already gone to the building... We jumped into a police car in the Philippines and urged them to act quickly, almost imploringly. But the Philippine police still looked calm and started the engine slowly.
A few minutes later, our expressions changed from complaining to stunned, because an unbelievable picture was presented in front of our eyes: the originally congested road with random horns, after the sound of police sirens, after police motorcycles cleared the road, he scrambled to give way, and made a way for the police to convoy abruptly. The Philippine police officer sitting next to me especially said in Versailles: "This is normal".
It was originally a traffic jam for an hour, but it only took us 20 minutes to reach the Global Trade Center building.We then made our way and dashed into the building with the Philippine police with shotguns. There were the loud screams of countless young men and women, at the gate, a man fell from a building and broke his leg; At the staircase, there were young people holding their heads and scurrying around were forced to raise their hands.
To avoid any injuries caused by bullets, my colleagues were seen shouting in chinese "Please do not attempt to move and raise your hands above your head and squat down. This isn't China, I repeat, this isn't China"
On December 19, 2019, under the unified command of the Ministry of Public Security, my colleagues, cities and prefectures, together with public security agencies in Shaanxi, Jiangsu and other places, and with the assistance of relevant Philippine government departments, successfully arrested the Metro Manila Global Trade Center Building in the Philippines. 342 criminal suspects were arrested on the spot.
The boss behind the scenes booked the flight back home
We were not immersed in the joy of victory after arresting more than 300 people.
Absolutely not. Because we know that the real culprit, boss Huang, is still hiding behind the scenes, and if even if he is arrested, this case will not be over. Given his power in the Philippines for many years, we dare not act rashly if we have not yet grasped the key evidence of his crime.
We raced against each other to carefully dig out the criminal evidence of boss Huang from the words of the arrested criminals and the data on various platforms. At the moment, when we were worried that he would clean up his mess and run away, he actually fell right into the trap all by himself.
Boss Huang attempt to enter the building by saying that "My relatives is in the building teaching english, I have to look for him" but in actual fact, he was inquiring about the situation. We pretended not to know who he is and did our best to cooperate with his performance.
2020, Jan - Boss Huang booked his tickets back to China and was preparing to flee. Ths important news reached us sooner as we expected and thus we decided to take him down in China. We were arranged to arrest Boss Huang at Beijing International Airport.
After the plane landed, colleagues who had already been unable to restrain themselves dashed into the cabin and pressed Boss Huang onto his seat. This man, who has been in a foreign country for many years and plundered countless wealth by electric fraud, finally bowed his head dejectedly at this moment. At this point, the "12·19" cross-border online fraud case has temporarily come to an end.
In the following year, we also experienced extreme events in the Philippines, such as epidemics, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, and insisted on sending hundreds of crooks back to China in batches for trial. The twists and turns will not be repeated.
The evaluation of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security is that this case is the case in which my country has captured the largest number of people and the largest amount of money involved in a single operation to combat telecommuncations fraud crimes abroad in recent years. This is the first successful case in which the owner of a gaming license to engage in telecommunications fraud crimes has been eradicated overseas, and it is also the first case in which a large behind-the-scenes gold master and a "snakehead" (people who arranged transportation and arrange illegal jobs) have been arrested to achieve a full-chain attack. The cracking of this case has formed a powerful deterrent to overseas electronic fraud groups.
Seeing Boss Huang put on handcuffs with a look of despair, and hearing that Liu is living a normal life again, although there is still a lot of work waiting for this case, I still feel particularly relieved. While staying up late to complete the case materials, I took two puffs of cigarettes fiercely, one for "justice" and the other for "I'm still alive."
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