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Kenya

Nairobi telecommunications fraud group targeted Chinese

KEYBOARDNAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 6 – The more than 70 Chinese arrested in Nairobi likely belong to a cross-border telecommunications fraud group, Chinese Embassy spokesman Mao Yizong has said.

He says that from the initial judgment the group uses communication equipment to call and cheat their targets, primarily fellow Chinese.

“Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying reiterated that China and Kenya enjoy long-standing friendship; the Chinese side resolutely supports the Kenyan side in combating all forms of illegal and criminal activities. We will actively cooperate with the Kenyan side to carry out investigation and handle the case in accordance with law, “Mao said.

He says the criminals make the Chinese victims believe that they have committed financial offenses with their banks, insurance companies or other financial institution and extort money by disguising themselves as prosecutors or authorities. Such groups escape Chinese police dragnets by moving from one country to another and prefer countries where their operations are not quite familiar with to ease their work and avoid arrest.

“Chinese police recently arrested some suspects in Zhejiang Province in China and some of them have confessed to belong to the group in Nairobi.” Mao said.

“Based on consular visits by Chinese Embassy officials, many of 77 are not well educated. It indicates that the suspects do not have the capacity to engage in cyber crimes or high security hacks such as threatening the M-PESA network, ATM accounts or security networks. Their job might simply be reading the carefully prepared ‘actor’s lines’ to cheat the (Chinese) victims through telephone calls,” he said.

In September 2014, around 100 suspected fraudsters were arrested in Egypt and expatriated to China to face criminal charges. In July this year a woman from Fujian Province China was defrauded of the equivalent of Sh90 million by the similar fraudsters hidden in Kenya.

“We are thankful to the Kenya police for their information and cooperation in this individual criminal case. The Chinese police have been working closely with the Kenyan police in our quest to bring the criminals to justice. We will establish a joint task force to tackle this issue,” Mao said.

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