Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Fu Yi Correspondent Zhang Yitao Yang Xiaohong
You only need to pay the relevant fees online, and some people claim to be a “volunteer of the Temple Good Books Circulation Office” to help you carry out Buddhist activities, and also provide videos and pictures as evidence. In fact, these are all fraudulent pretexts for fraud gangs. Recently, the Huangpu District Bureau of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau of the Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau removed a gang that pretended to be a Buddhist temple volunteer and committed fraud by selling Buddhist products and pushing Buddhist activities. It took criminal coercive measures against 22 criminal suspects in accordance with the law, seized 20 laptop computers, 155 mobile phones, Buddhist books, Buddhist beads and other tools, with the amount involved reaching 1.2 million yuan.
Community police made efforts to seize the fraud den
At around 11:00 on April 7, according to clues reported by the public, community police from Luogang Police Station visited and checked an apartment on Luogang Street. They found that nearly 30 workstations were placed in the small duplex apartment less than 90 square meters, and each workstation had 4 to 5 mobile phones. With rich community experience, community police judged that this might be a fraud den.
Community police immediately reported the situation to the police station. After receiving the report, Huangpu police quickly organized the criminal police team, the Anti-Fraud Center, the Luogang Sect Office and other police officers. They took the arrest at around 12:00 on the same day, and killed the suspected fraud den in one fell swoop. 22 criminal suspects were arrested on the spot, and 20 laptop computers, 155 mobile phones and Buddhist books were seized. A batch of tools such as Buddhist beads and other crimes.
Cultural communication company, pretending to be a temple volunteer, and police found that the fraud gang operated a cultural communication company to the outside world, secretly pretending to be a Buddhist temple volunteer, and by selling Buddhist products, pushing Buddhist activities, etc.Implement fraud in a way. The fraud gang has clear hierarchy and clear division of labor. It has a new media operation department and five business groups in operation. The New Media Operations Department is responsible for producing and editing the videos of the Buddhist activities downloaded from the Internet. The business group is responsible for posting the videos to the platform to attract fans, and then Komiks to divert fans to WeChat to add friends to fraud.
Each person in the gang gave a “fa” number. When committing the fraud, he greeted the believers according to the content on the “Speech Book”, and lied that he was a volunteer at the Good Book Distribution Office of a Buddhist temple. He had free Buddhist scriptures and beads (giving customers Buddhist products). The believers could receive the product by paying the express fee at will. The Cinema gang often cares about believers and answers their confusion. They will also push some pictures and short videos from temples on WeChat Moments to create fake images. After gaining the trust of believers, the gang will push related Buddhist activities to them, such as releasing animals, praying for blessings, offering amulets, etc., allowing believers to donate merit gold in the pushed link, and receive blessings as much as they donate, thus achieving the purpose of fraud.
There is no Buddhist activities, but it is real to cheat money
According to the main member of the gang, Liu (male, 31 years old), CinemaKomiks explains that the gang members can help freely get involved in Buddhist beads and Buddhist scriptures by pretending to be volunteers in the temple’s Good Books Circulation Office. These Buddhist beads and Buddhist scriptures are all counterfeit products purchased in bulk online, with a cost of about 5 yuan and a express delivery fee of about 5 yuan. However, the express delivery fee given by believers is generally more than 10 yuan, or even more than 100 yuan. The gang not only earns the difference from it, but its main purpose is to screen “high-quality believers” for the next large-scale fraud, and push related Buddhist activities to some “high-quality believers” who have gained trust in order to achieve the purpose of cheating money.
In fact, the cultural company and Buddhist temples have no cooperation projects at all, and they have not contacted the temple to help hold corresponding Buddhist activitiesKomiks. The so-called Buddhist activities videos are just videos and pictures of similar Buddhist activities downloaded from the Internet by the main members of the gang, and are regularly sent to internal groups for reuse when gang members commit fraud, in order to pretend to show to believers that Buddhist activities have been held.
At present, 22 criminal suspects have been taken by Huangpu police in accordance with the law, and the case is under further investigation.