China Behind One of the World’s ‘Largest Online Scams’! Beware! DON’T SCAN QR CODES

The investigation revealed that a nefarious Chinese internet company had established up to 76,000 fake websites, targeting consumers in Europe and the United States. These websites masqueraded as reputable Western brands such as Dior, Nike, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Versace, and Prada. They offer discounted products while actually defrauding users of their personal information.
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[Music] despite not making any online purchases individuals are receiving unexpected delivery packages containing small gifts and vouchers upon scanning the QR codes enclosed within recipients find themselves able to claim cash rewards but beneath the seemingly innocuous gesture lies a hidden trap recently cases of fraud utilizing unfamiliar packages have been on the rise across China causing many unsuspecting victims people were swindled from tens to hundreds of thousands of UN today I encountered a form of scam everyone be careful I received a delivery without making any purchases it came from chandu upon opening it I found a pack of cheap wet wipes card in a tbow annual event leaflet along with alibaba’s official seal This Man reveals the focal point of the scam the prize section within the card upon opening there’s a high probability of winning a small prize such as a 20 un cash reward or items worth less than 100 un then you’re prompted to scan the QR code and open it in your browser subsequently various Verification codes pop up once entered your money could be stolen on February 15th an unnamed woman fell victim to an online scam at the times she received what appeared to be an ordinary delivery package upon opening it she found a card with a QR code claiming to offer free Fruit upon scanning driven by curiosity she scanned the QR code leading her into a WeChat customer service group within the group members were discussing the fruit distribution the group administrator even claimed that liking the post could earn one a cash reward witnessing numerous claims of receiving such rewards she believed it to be genuine and followed suit scanning the QR code within the WeChat group downloading an app named ow and successfully registering initially they provided me with a charitable account and asked me to transfer a sum of money into it which wasn’t substantial so I complied shortly after the customer service promptly refunded the money for that task along with some subsidies all of which were indeed credited back to me later I became completely convinced they then announced a new charitable task little did I know after transferring the money while the task appeared to be completed I couldn’t redeem the cash back the customer service claimed it was due to my operational error and requested another transfer consequently I transferred another sum of money this cycle repeated and in total I was swindled out of about 850,000 y recently some people have received Parcels with a QR code on them it is said said that scanning this QR code allows participation in activities to receive Cash Back Rewards or to win small gifts this blogger wanted to test its authenticity let’s start by scanning a red envelope today’s Red envelopes are randomly drawn wow I got Malai zodiac commemorative liquor a set of 10 bottles of liquor what luck a whole box of liquor isn’t that amazing they ask me to fill in my address to claim it immediately let’s fill it out claim it now order successful a customer service representative will contact me let’s wait for their call later on the screen showed that if they wanted to participate in another draw they had to agree to the privacy policy first it also required providing the recipient’s name phone number and even address and ID card number this made the Blogger suspicious of the authenticity of the activity he believed that after obtaining personal information from the deceived person scammers would proceed with their next plan at the same time he had a question is this activity on the delivery order initiated by the merchant or the courier company currently scammers employ a multitude of deceitful tactics making it easy to fall into their traps a senior college student Mau who typically earns over a million yen through modeling found herself entirely swindled after a trip to Dubai after returning I discovered all my money was gone I’ve suffered a loss of 1, 123,000 Yen it’s truly a significant amount of money not a trivial sum at the time malau received a lucrative job offer and traveled to Dubai for a photo shoot the opportunity seemed enticing as it promised a daily salary of 10,000 un along with accommodation and airfare excitedly malau packed her bags and embarked on the journey upon arrival in Dubai malau contacted the local liaison named Shen jaao chin during the shoot malau began to feel something was weird the equipment used by the filming crew consisted only of smartphones which was inconsistent with a promised High salary leading her to Harbor suspicions upon waking up one morning malma was shocked to find her phone and bank cards missing the situation escalated leaving her with only an empty credit card she immediately contacted Shen Jain but she evaded suggestions of checking surveillance footage and Reporting it to the authorities instead she advised malau to freeze her funds and return to her home country as soon as possible during her journey back to China malau was forced to transit in Egypt she was stranded there for 30 hours due to her inability to pay the visa fee with a credit card Upon returning to Dubai she completely lost contact with shenin Chinese scammers not only target their compatriots but also extend their reach to people in other countries recently an international investigation conducted jointly by the UK’s Guardian Germany’s daite and France’s leemon uncovered a large scale scam the investigation revealed that a nefarious Chinese internet company had established up to 76,000 fake websites targeting consumers in Europe and the United States these websites masqueraded as reputable Western Brands such as Dior Nike lacost Hugo Boss Versace and prda they offer discounted products while actually defrauding users of their personal information this fraud case has been identified by the charter trading standards Institute of the UK as one of the largest online scams the scammers set up as many 76,000 fishing websites which were displayed in multiple languages including English German French Spanish Swedish and Italian the IP addresses of these fake websites Trace back to fuen China with connections to a company called fuo joning Network Technology this company claims to be a foreign trade company mainly producing sports shoes and related products but it is peculiar that the company does not actually manufacture any products instead it extensively recruits developers and data collection staff through Chinese recruitment websites offering monthly salaries ranging from 640 to 1,000 it is reported that the company is officially registered in China and has been issued a unique identification code by the authorities with its address located in Fu Joo the capital city of fujian Province the deceived users have reported either not receiving any Goods at all or receiving items completely different from their orders often cheap Goods the scammer’s objective is to defraud consumers of their money and sensitive personal information so far the deceived customers mostly come from Europe and America 476,000 individuals have provided detailed information of financial or credit cards including the three digit security code moreover all individuals have left their names phone numbers email addresses and mailing addresses on the network currently about 800,000 email addresses have been exposed Jake Moore a global cyber security adviser at the software company es stated that personal data could be highly valuable to foreign intelligence agencies which could potentially use it for surveillance the bigger concern he added is that we must assume that the Chinese government might have access to this data so how did the victims fall prey to the scan Melanie Brown off 54-year-old resident of the UK wanted to purchase a new handbag in the weeks leading up to Christmas she searched on Google for an image of her favorite German designer rol’s leather bag instead a discount website appeared claiming to offer the bag at a 50% lower price without hesitation she added the bag to her cart after selecting the handbag she found clothing from another high-end brand Magnolia Pearl on the same website excitedly she picked out 15 items of clothing including dresses tops and jeans totaling $1,500 the price seemed significantly cheaper than retail she believed she was getting a great deal unaware it was a scam Michael Rua who operates the online store art toys in the center of Paris stated that the fake website copied the product catalog entirely changed the names and used a different domain he said they stole images from his website and alter the prices which were much lower of course the German cyber secur consulting firm security research lab was among the first to uncover the scam and has since acquired a significant amount of data which he has shared with daite their findings revealed that the first batch of counterfeit stores was established around 2015 data analysis indicates that over the past 3 years alone these fraudulent websites process more than 1 million orders swindling consumers out of almost 54,000 the investigation shows that this fraudulent operation is meticulous and Tech technologically Adept despite many fake online stores being abandoned onethird of them totaling over 22,500 are still operational online observers caution that these fraudulent websites utilize Payment Processing services such as PayPal stripe and others in some cases directly accept payments from debit or credit cards moreover the core development team Behind These Chinese counterfeit websites appears to have built a system capable of semi-automatically creating and launching websites for Rapid deployment these technicians also seem to operate their own stores while allowing other groups to use a system logs indicate that at least 210 users have accessed the system since 2015 these fraudulent websites even go as far as using expired domain names of legitimate Brands to host counterfeit stores aiming to deceive consumers they appear to possess a database containing 2.7 million unique domains and conduct tests to determine which domain are best suited for use in recent years Chinese scammers have also targeted International students one female student studying in the United States Shar the following incident the scammer had a US ID and completely copied my profile picture cover photo and some captions from my thr account he used this thr account to contact my mom telling her that my phone got water damaged while doing laundry and I could only communicate with her through the computer version of theing he then told my mom that there was a professor who couldn’t take so much cash back to China when my classmates and I went to the airport to send him off we helped him bring the money back now I needed to transfer the money to the professor’s card but my card had a limit and my phone was damaged so I couldn’t do it therefore my parents had to help me refund the money to the professor the person even asked my mom to add the professor on WeChat and directly contact him so my mom added him and this so-called Professor chatted with my mom a lot fortunately my mom felt something was fishy and managed to contact me using the phone which prevented her from being deceived scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated able to fully replicate your accounts and even potentially defraud your loved ones using your voice or video due to time differences and information gaps parents May panic when they cannot reach their children providing an opportunity for SC amers to exploit furthermore scammers also capitalize on Chinese people’s fear of the Chinese Communist Party the FBI issued a warning to the public on May 9th hoping to alter a new scam to International students and young people especially Chinese students studying abroad in this scam criminals impersonate Chinese Law Enforcement Officers using intimidation tactics to threaten victims they claim the victims are targets of criminal investigations in China and persuade them to pay fees to avoid arrest or de portation FBI special agent Gloria toig said that these scammers are Dept at disguise and have strong persuasiveness due to a lack of understanding of the US law enforcement and Criminal Justice System among Chinese citizens the scammers exploit this vulnerability to carry out their scams in a previous case Chinese exchange student Zang Kai was scammed out of 80,000 usar eventually police officers found dangai hiding in the canyon area of Utah the chief of police in Riverdale stated that dang was manipulated by online kidnappers who made him believe that his family in China was under threat using the same tactics the kidnappers also controlled jang’s family under the deception of Lies jang’s parents paid $880,000 in Ransom which was deposited into a bank account in China the US authorities explained that the criminals typically Target young foreign exchange students and their families demanding ransoms they may instruct the students to hide and under coer take photos of themselves appearing to be in prisoned which are then sent to their families according to the FBI these scams usually involve four stages the initial contact phase whether scammers impersonate employees of us companies or the Chinese Embassy posing seemingly reasonable questions over the phone such as unsettled credit card balances or unpaid bills they utilize techniques to disguise or conceal their true phone numbers the second phase involves intimidation tactics where the victim is transferred to another SC impersonating a Chinese law enforcement officer this individual provides details of alleged crimes committed by the victim and threatens arrest or deportation to China for trial in the third phase the victim is subjected to surveillance with the scammers forcing them to agree to 247 audiovisual monitoring and prohibiting them from discussing or researching the case they may also demand the victim’s assistance in investigating other individuals the fourth phase the final action entails a scammers instructing the victim to to transfer money to a Chinese bank account to prove innocence or to pay a bail to avoid deportation to China they may also command the victim to lie to family and friends to obtain more funds or assist in similar scams targeting others the FBI emphasizes that legitimate foreign law enforcement officers do not accuse individuals of crimes or demand money over the phone victims should cooperate with us Law Enforcement Officers to prevent falling victim to scams similar situations have also been encountered by Chinese students studying in South Korea recently a female student received multiple calls from numbers starting with 02 they claim to be calling from the Chinese Embassy in South Korea stating that there was a document from Shanghai that needed my confirmation they said I was involved in an international moneya laundering case initially I wasn’t too alarmed because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong but I still ended up believing them they told me that in 2 hours I would be restricted from entering or leaving China in the future and they instructed me to transfer the call to a certain police officer named fun fuer from the hongo branch in Shanghai this person was a scammer he provided a badge number and a phone number I checked the phone number at the time and it indeed belonged to the Shanghai public Security Bureau he told me that I needed to return to China immediately for for an investigation if I didn’t return immediately might be put on The Wanted list they recited my ID number and asked for confirmation of my identity at that moment I started to believe them a little bit the scammer utilized his fake high ranking identity in the student ID card to open a bank account claiming that only a few people knew about the alleged legal incident the scammer said the criminals Ed the students proof of absence to facilitate the account opening process the student began to wonder if she was truly targeted as they seemed to know she was out of town this marked the beginning of her communication with the scammers subsequently the scammer informed a student that failing to return to China for investigation would leave a stain on her records and affect her academic Pursuits they even presented what they claimed to be two judgments of the so-called arrest warrant along with the warrant itself all bearing seals of the so-called central government to intimidate her this scammer also asserted that in order to qualify for overseas investigation the girl needed to provide her basic information and demanded a guarantee fee they employed various tactics to coerce a female student into handing over money in the end she lost 358,000 UN in cases like these the FBI advises individuals not to disclose personal or financial information to unidentified individuals accusing them of crimes let alone making any payments it is recommended to seize communication with such individuals immediately also do not easily trust contact numbers that appear to be official if someone claims to be from Chinese authorities contact you immediately contact your local FBI office foreign government officials must coordinate with us Federal authorities when enforcing the law in the United States furthermore it has been reported that the pig butchering scam has become a new type of modern crime Eric Gonzalez District prosecutor in Brooklyn New York announced on May 4th that his office successfully uncovered a scam involving more than 4 million un due to receiving numerous reports from Brooklyn residents Gonzalez’s office established a virtual currency unit specifically tasked with investigating this type of crime the investigation began in March 2023 when a 51-year-old woman provided information about coin.com subsequently law enforcement took action successfully shutting down the website and its related virtual servers as well as ceasing the use of at least 20 URLs associated with the website the investigation revealed that The Mastermind of this scam group is from Southeast Asia the scammers bank accounts may be located in China as it is a transnational crime the investigation efforts have been constrained the victims are mainly Chinese and Russian descent people sarcastically remarked online who would have thought scammers are everywhere in China and even abroad one can’t escape the fate of being being duped what’s even more baffling is the recent overseas fraud allegations involving a prominent state-owned Chinese Bank the China construction Banks branch in Manhattan has been sued on May 9th an American Insurance and Home Services software provider porch group filed a lawsuit in the southern district court of New York porch and its subsidiaries are accusing China construction Bank of colluding with employees of the bankrupt Israeli insurance company vest they issued dozens of fraudulent rein Insurance credit certificates ensuring the company received reinsurance funds Port stated that its subsidiary homeowners of America Insurance pay tens of millions of dollars in premiums for these non-existent reinsurance policies it wasn’t until July 2023 that they discovered some of the credit certificates supporting vst’s reinsurance transactions were counterfeit vstu provided Insurance link Securities to insurance companies which is a form of reinsurance that can be supported by collateral in the form of credit certificates vesu file for bankruptcy under chapter 11 of the US Bank code last August accused the using about $2 billion in fake credit certificates Port stated that hoa’s reinsurance credit facility was suddenly rendered worthless when it was discovered that $300 million Us in fake credit certificates were secured by Chinese construction Bank this caused a loss of tens of millions of dollars for HOA according to the lawsuit HOA had to pay $80 million to cover insurance claims that should have been reinsured while porch had to provide $57 million to stabilize its subsidiary porch stock price fell after the Scandal broke people joke that even China state-owned Enterprises are resorting to scams abroad showing they are willing to go to any length for profit [Music]