An increasing number of Chinese people around the world are falling victim to a scam that entails individuals pretending to be Chinese police officers. The BBC has reported on a case involving a British-Chinese woman named Helen Young who was informed that she was on China’s most-wanted list for a massive fraud committed in her homeland. The perpetrators then presented fabricated evidence which implicated Young in a crime. The scammers went on to threaten her with extradition to China if she did not send them her £29,000 life savings. Helen Young’s case is not unique. China’s embassies have warned worldwide about the dangers of such police impersonation scams. Even the FBI has issued a warning.
The scam typically begins with a relatively innocuous phone call. In Helen’s case, someone claimed to be a Chinese customs officer and told her they had stopped an illegal parcel in her name. Helen hadn’t sent anything, but the caller insisted that she must file a police report if she believed her identity had been stolen. Helen was sceptical of the caller, but like other Chinese people she felt compelled to obey authority figures. She was handed over to a man who claimed to be a policeman in Shenzhen, named Officer Fang. Fang suggested that they go on a video call so that she could see him and the police station in which he worked. There, Helen saw a uniformed man whose face matched the police ID he produced.
After the call ended, Helen heard a message on the tannoy system in the background, telling Officer Fang to take a call about her. Fang then told her that she was suspected of involvement in a massive financial fraud. Helen was shown what seemed to be a bank statement for a vast amount of money in her name. Officer Fang then threatened her with extradition to China if she did not cooperate with the police. Feeling increasingly within police’s crosshairs, Helen sent the scammers her £29,000 life savings as “bail money”.
This scam is not new and has been affecting generations of Chinese diaspora with compelling scams that follow a similar pattern to that experienced by Helen. Awareness of this type of fraud is growing, and therefore, it is important to be vigilant of scams that start with innocuous phone calls. Chinese-Americans and Chinese-Canadians have received warnings from the embassies about potential scammers. As was the case with Helen, scammers create a sense of fear and urgency which forces many people to pay money out of fear. Victims are often subjects to a level of torment that they may feel helpless to control
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