Intensify crackdown on telecom frauds

Song Zhenning died of heart attack after being swindled in a telephone scam . [File photo]

THE LOCAL POLICE in East China's Shandong province and South China's Guangdong province have detained 28 suspects involved in three recent telecom fraud cases and in so doing exposed a nationwide network of telecom fraudsters and hackers. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Saturday:

It is reported that there is a giant underground telecom fraud network of more than one million people. A 19-year-old would-be freshman in Guangdong province was defrauded of 9,800 ($1,470) yuan in a telephone scam in July, while a freshman-to-be and a college student, both in Shandong province, died of heart attacks after they were defrauded of their money in August.

Within this criminal network are those who steal people's personal information and sell it to fraudsters and those that sell fraudsters SIM cards so they don't need to register their phones. They usually cooperate knowing little about one another.

This coalition of illegal interests needs to be tackled by all means possible. But simply legislating to protect personal information is hardly enough, as there are always loopholes in data management that can be exploited.

The criminals must be made fearful of harsher punishments and more efficient police enforcement. They must pay the price for what they have done or are planning to do. It is truly an encouraging achievement that 28 suspects have been held accountable not long after they committed a crime. But the fight must go on, as at least 57,000 telecom fraud cases were discovered just in the first half of this year, almost 2.5 times those in the same period of last year.

On their part, local police should pay more attention to such cases. More efforts are also needed to trace and recover the losses of the telecom victims. Financial and telecom sectors, too, need to assist the police in their law enforcement and report to them any abnormal transactions or suspicious telephone calls.