Alleged fraud suspects try to conceal their identities by wearing a face mask as policemen escort them when they arrive at Taoyuan Airport in Taoyuan on April 15, 2016. (Photo : Getty Images)
Experts point out the advantage of persecuting scammers in mainland China because of its harsher penalties, which could daunt scammers from carrying out their illegal activities, reported China Daily.
According to Fan Chongyi, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, laws in the mainland impose a sentence of life imprisonment to any person found guilty of engaging in telephone fraud. On the contrary, in Taiwan, the punishment given to such people is five years imprisonment.
Fan said that those scammers who underwent trial in Taiwan either received a light punishment or got acquitted from the charges filed against them. Eventually, Fan added, they go back doing dirty business.
Talks about punishments for scammers became louder when several Chinese nationals got caught involved in a fraud.
According to China Daily, Malaysian and Chinese police forces teamed up in March to eliminate telecom frauds. Their joint efforts led to the closure of five telecom fraud dens in Malaysia and to the arrest of 65 Chinese suspects from the mainland and 52 from Taiwan.
On April 15, Malaysia repatriated all 52 suspects to Taiwan. For lack of evidence, Taiwanese authorities freed 20 of them. On April 30, the remaining 32 were deported to China.
Zhang Jun, a senior investigator from the Ministry of Public Security, said that it’s better for the 32 suspects to be sent to China. In Taiwan, only lenient penalties await them.
An arrested fraud suspect surnamed Hsu from Taiwan said to Xinhua that engaging in telephone scams appealed to him because he could earn money easily and if caught, would only face a light punishment from Taiwanese authorities.
Now deported in the mainland, looking back, Hsu said that if he had only known that he would end up in the mainland, he would think twice to scam people.
According to the Ministry of Public Security, in just a year, Taiwanese scamming people in the mainland yields them some 10 billion yuan, reported South China Morning Post.
SCMP said that 1.3 billion people in the country own a phone and 700 million use the Internet. That’s how large the number of people scammers can victimize.
