Release time: 2025/3/11 19:31 Update time: 2025/3/11 21:12
CHEN,KUAN-HSUN CHEN,PO-YU /local reporting
A serial fraud case occurred in China. An old woman in New Taipei City successively paid more than 680,000 yuan. She was convinced that she could meet actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, but she unexpectedly fell into a fraud trap. The police followed the lead and rarely arrested elderly riders. In-depth investigation found that the 65-year-old woman involved in the case would collect money for others. She confessed that she was deceived by the fraud group and that as long as the withdrawal task was completed, Chinese President Xi Jinping would be arranged to come to Taiwan to meet her.
While sitting in a supermarket, waiting for an interview, the police suddenly “visited” her. Another driver was arrested, and many successful withdrawals were made in the past two months. But how could the victim in the whole case be so willing to hand over his savings again and again?
The 69-year-old woman did not hesitate to spend a lot of money just to meet her idol Tony Leung.
HUANG,WEN-YANG, the investigation team leader of the New Taipei City Linkou Branch, said, “The victim handed over NT$680,000 in cash and credit cards.”
Police investigation revealed that the 65-year-old suspect was willing to become a driver and had a plan to realize his dream. She confessed that she was also deceived by the rhetoric, thinking that completing the task would arrange for her to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Taiwan. However, this time the criminal group was different from the past and rarely attracted older riders.
Wang Po-Chi, an associate professor at the Department of Criminal Justice at Ming Chuan University, pointed out, “In the case of an elderly person, he may not be financially well-off and I can’t defraud him. So should I simply turn to deception and become a member of our driver group to give full play to his residual value.”
Scams mostly start from the community and spread widely on Facebook and IG. Wangpin Group has also become a different kind of victim. Its brands were faked and claimed to be organizing Little Chef activities, prompting industry operators to urgently clarify. Even LINE is not immune to fraud.
A Taipei citizen said: “We once left a profile and added us as friends, and passive messages would keep coming in.”
Mr. Chen, a Taipei citizen, said, “There will be some advertisements that pop up out of nowhere. Because of my work, we do not turn off the function of adding friends on LINE.”
Ms. Xu, a Taipei citizen, said, “We old people don’t know how to lock the door. We have to wait until the young people ask him.”
To prevent LINE from being hacked, some experts said that you can turn off six major functions, including allowing friends to be added, external application access, and providing usage data.
Information security expert Liu Yanbo pointed out, “If it is sent by a government agency, the account it sends should have a shield. The color of the shield is basically green or blue, which means it has been verified.”
If you are afraid that a fraud group will impersonate a public LINE ID, some experts suggest that you can also check whether the account has a shield and the color of the shield to identify the authenticity.