Chinese courts clamp down on fraud

Chinese courts have been ordered to severely punish those who make use of children and students to commit telecom and online fraud, an official from China's top court said.

People who provide an aid or a technical service for cross-border telecom and online fraud, or organizers, ringleaders or backbone members of scam groups, should also be harshly penalized, according to Gao Jinghong, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court.

He made the requirement at a working meeting of fighting telecom and online scammers, which was held by the top court on Monday.

"The fight against fraud is close to everyone's basic interest, as well as related to the national security, financial security and social stability," he said, urging courts to research more on new types of fraud to strongly protect people's personal and property safety.

While combating scammers, he also called for judges nationwide to intensify the efforts to fight crimes caused by the fraud, such as human trafficking, intentional injury, robbery and rape.

Chinese police and judicial authorities have attached great importance to cracking down on fraud, especially the cross-border cases.

From 2018 to 2022, Chinese courts solved 226,000 criminal cases involving telecom and online fraud, with tougher punishment to those infringing upon people's personal data, a work report issued by the top court said in March.

Chinese police have also made every effort to fight scammers by increasing international cooperation. For instance, more than 1,207 online scam suspects, including 41 on the wanted list of the Chinese police, were handed over to China from Myanmar early this month, according to the Ministry of Public Security.