Attracting followers and increasing traffic to social and short video accounts in various ways is known as "fan attraction". In recent years, some telecom network fraudsters have used the method of "attracting followers and draining traffic" to introduce potential victims to their fraudulent activities. Recently, the Yunnan police reported such a case.
An 8-person gang was arrested, and nearly 500 mobile phones illegally "attracted fans and drained traffic"
At the beginning of July 2023, the Yuxi Public Security Bureau in Yunnan Province received a tip report that a company in the jurisdiction was engaged in abnormal "fan attraction and drainage" promotion activities. After receiving the clues, the police immediately set up a special team to investigate the media company located in Hongta District, Yuxi City.
Zhang Yusong, Captain of the Cyber Security Brigade of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: We combined some offline squatting points and found that all the employees of the company were female except for the person in charge, who was a man, and the work and rest time was also abnormal.
The company's employees not only work late at night, but their daily electricity consumption is extremely high. Through the network investigation, the task force also found that this company was connected with a telecommunications network fraud gang.
After grasping the relevant evidence, the police of the special case group went to the two dens to arrest them.
Zhang Yusong, Captain of the Cyber Security Brigade of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: Everyone has their own seat, and there is a soundproof panel in the middle, which should be convenient for voice calls and voice exchanges. Everyone has twenty or thirty mobile phones on their desktop.
In the arrest operation on the same day, the police arrested a total of 8 suspects including period, and seized 496 mobile phones involved in the case, 8 computers involved in the case, and a large number of phone cards, QQ numbers, WeChat accounts and other data evidence.
The anchor accosted a male netizen to "drain" the wire fraud gang
The police seized nearly 500 mobile phones at the scene, so why does this company, which has less than 10 people, need so many mobile phones? What does it have to do with their "attracting followers and draining traffic" and telecommunications network fraud? With the arrival of eight criminal suspects including Qi Mou, these doubts have been solved one by one.
According to the police, a large number of personnel and traffic usually bring considerable benefits to the merchants of the platform. However, there are also some telecom network fraudsters who use these "follower-draining" companies to act as "middlemen" to bring in more potential victims for themselves. In order to cooperate with these wire fraud gangs to attract more target fraud targets, Qi Mou posted recruitment information on the Internet.
Tan Shuyuan, deputy director of the Chunhe Police Station of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: When selecting employees, only female staff were selected.
Xiaoyan, 23 years old this year, saw the recruitment information of Qi Mou on the website, which said that he was recruiting online customer service.
After successfully applying for the job, Period sent Xiaoyan 8 mobile phones, each of which was logged in to a different social media account, and these accounts all had the same "personality".
Tan Shuyuan, deputy director of the Chunhe Police Station of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: They are all the avatars and nicknames of beautiful women, and some of those images will be more explicit, so that the victim feels very excited and happy at a glance.
Under the cover of this media company, the job of the female employee who applied for the job was to post some live videos as a female online anchor, and to find young male users in the comment section below to take the initiative to chat. In order to gain the trust of the other party, these female anchors will take the initiative to send voice messages or call male netizens, hoping to add each other as friends on social platforms.
Zhang Yusong, Captain of the Cyber Security Brigade of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: After the real voice was called, the male netizens basically believed that it was a woman, which deepened the trust of the male netizens. After a simple chat, you will say that it is inconvenient to chat on Douyin, and you can add QQ number and WeChat account to chat.
Tan Shuyuan, deputy director of the Chunhe Police Station of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: They pushed the WeChat and QQ accounts of the fraudsters who needed to be drained to each other, and their work had been completed at this point. If the victim adds a number, the person who chats with the victim is the real fraudster.
After setting up a line for telecom fraudsters and potential victims, Qi and his gang received corresponding remuneration from the telecom fraud gang, and in less than a year, the gang made a profit of more than 40 yuan.
The gang was suspected of "aiding and abetting trust" and was transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution
Although he and his gang did not directly commit telecommunications fraud, they acted as a "middleman" between the fraudsters and the deceived persons, misleading and luring the deceived to add the scammer's WeChat and QQ friends, so as to obtain illegal benefits. Is such an act a crime?
The police said that Qi and his employees still provided them with "fan attraction and drainage" services even though they knew that the object of their service was an electric fraud gang, inducing the victims to add the fraudster's WeChat account and QQ account, and their behavior was suspected of helping information network criminal activities.
Article 287 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that whoever clearly knows that others are using information networks to commit crimes, provides them with technical support such as internet access, server hosting, network storage, or communication transmission, or provides assistance such as advertising and promotion, payment and settlement, and the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to up to three years imprisonment or short-term detention and/or a fine.
In this case, some of the people who were pushed by Period to the fraud gang fell into the trap of the fraudsters' "pig killing plate" and were defrauded of a large amount of money.
Tan Shuyuan, deputy director of the Chunhe Police Station of the Hongta Branch of the Yuxi Public Security Bureau: On the day of the arrest, we found more than 500 WeChat accounts.
At present, the suspects involved in the case have been transferred to the local procuratorate for review and prosecution.
Source: CCTV news client
Editor: Xiong Gongjie
Editor-in-charge: Gao Yang Review: Du Hongli Final review: Zou Yan