94 telefraud suspects are brought back from Spain

Ninety-four suspects from Taiwan believed to be involved with cross-border telecom fraud have been extradited to China from Spain as part of an intensified crackdown on wire fraud, the Ministry of Public Security announced on Friday.

On Friday morning, Chinese police boarded a chartered airplane with the suspected swindlers and escorted them to Beijing, the ministry said.

In 2016, police from China and Spain launched a joint coordinated action plan to fight cross-border telecom fraud.

To date, 225 suspects have been extradited from Spain to face justice. Of those, 218 were from Taiwan, including the most recent 94.

"Judicial cooperation between China and Spain has achieved a great success. It is the first time that Chinese police have escorted a large number of swindlers back from Europe," a ministry statement said on Friday.

In 2016, police discovered many fraud operations hidden in Spain, where swindlers pretended to be the judicial officers to target people on the Chinese mainland. Many wire fraud cases involving up to 10 million yuan ($1.45 million) were reported in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, and in Beijing, the ministry said.

It said the primary suspects were mainly from Taiwan and that the ringleaders often set up their network centers in Europe and directed the other gang members to commit crimes from remote locations.

According to the ministry, the fraudsters cheated the victims by claiming their personal information had been leaked or that their credit cards or bank accounts had been stolen, or they threatened people with accusations of money laundering or drug trafficking.

People who believed the tales thought their bank accounts were unsafe, so they transferred their money to a designated safe account offered by the suspects, the ministry said.

In December 2016, police in both countries jointly arrested 237 suspects in Spain, destroyed 13 fraud centers and confiscated many criminal tools valued at 120 million yuan.

In 2017, China requested that Spain extradite the swindlers. After a two-year-long judicial procedure in Spain, the Spanish court ordered that all the suspects be extradited to China. So far, 225 have returned.

The police action seriously hit wire fraud criminal rings from Taiwan and has played a in deterring transnational telecom fraud, according to an official at the ministry who asked not to be named.

"We will strengthen intelligence sharing and joint investigative cooperation with other countries in Europe to combat such crimes and bring the suspects to justice," he said.