2025/10/22 01:39:07
Economic Daily, Xiang Jialin
On October 15th, the Securities Foundation held a lecture at National Chiayi University titled “New Trends in Investor Asset Management in 2025.” Professor LIN,SHU-LI , Assistant Professor of the Department of Criminal Justice at Ming Chuan University, shared his experience on the recent topic of social concern: “Preventing Financial Fraud Cases.” He emphasized that fraud prevention is a lifelong necessity. Besides reminding the public to remain vigilant, increasing statutory penalties for fraud is one of the best ways criminal justice can achieve a deterrent effect.
Taiwanese people are terrified of fraud. According to the 165 Anti-Fraud Dashboard, the number of fraud cases filed and financial losses in June 2015 decreased by 20.29% and 33.38%, respectively, compared to August 2014. However, even so, the dashboard’s full-year financial losses from August 2015 still reached NT$119.481 billion, with 184,983 cases filed.
As for who is most vulnerable to fraud? Which groups are defrauded of the highest amounts? Lin Shuli pointed out that the age group with the most fraud victims is 18 to 30, but the age group with the highest total fraud amounts is 51 to 60. This is because this group has the deepest pockets. Although the number of victims is far less than that of younger people, the total amount of fraud is the highest. This is mainly due to the fact that investment fraud methods are the main cause of the highest financial losses!
The Financial Supervisory Commission has repeatedly reminded investors that all investments carry risks, with both gains and losses, and no guarantees of profit. Therefore, any claims of “guaranteed doubling of returns, guaranteed profits” are a sure sign of a scam. Even in an investment group with 60 to 80 members, most are dummy accounts interacting with the “hooked-up” individuals. Don’t be fooled.
Lin Shu-li stated that the three most common ways college students are scammed are: first, cardless installment payments; second, fake car loan scams; and third, lending dummy accounts. These days, fraud rings “scam you if you have money, swindle you if you don’t have money, swindle your account; and if you don’t have money or an account, swindle you into going overseas (to Cambodia)!” Furthermore, the legal adult age limit under the Civil Code has been lowered from 20 to 18, so you could be scammed even as a freshman. Students here must be extremely cautious.
We used to say, “People’s hearts are like their stomachs, but in today’s society, they’re like their hearts are like the internet.” “Trusting everything online is worse than having no internet at all!” Requests for financial verification on your phone are definitely scams; don’t be fooled. Asking for verification to sell products can also be a scam, so be careful.
If fraud is a “low-risk, high-reward” industry, it will be endless. Therefore, the only solution is to increase the statutory penalties for fraud. Lin Shuli shared a bloody case: a Yunlin scammer boasted on TikTok that he had defrauded 26 people and obtained over NT$3 million in illegal proceeds, yet the court only seized over NT$7,000. He even mocked the verdict as a “resume” and even said, “You can work for a fraud company. If you want to make money, look for him.” This arrogant fraud convict was immediately identified by the National Police Agency, and the Ministry of Justice held a midnight meeting to revoke his parole.
Fraud is rampant both domestically and internationally, with the amount of fraud in the United States reaching $12.5 billion annually! The Economist warns of the three main groups of people who are scammed: those seeking jobs, friends, and wealth! Fraud rings particularly target white people aged 40-65. So why do they often fall for scams even though they know they’re being scammed? One person responded simply because “someone was willing to listen to me,” demonstrating that lonely and socially isolated individuals are easily targeted by scammers.
Recently, the US and UK jointly cracked down on the largest cryptocurrency fraud case in history, seizing over $14 billion worth of Bitcoin, approximately 127,000 coins. Chen Zhi, founder of Cambodia’s Prince Group, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering. Internal documents guiding the scams included using photos of “less attractive” women to create a persona with some flaws, avoiding a flawed image that could easily be identified as a scam. Lin Shuli warned that criminal law cannot quickly recover the money lost through fraud. Only through civil litigation, through provisional attachments and rulings, can the money be frozen and recovered quickly.
Fraud has become a compulsory course in life. In the era of the rise of AI, criminal justice requires professionals with a comprehensive understanding of the “three-way flow” of information, telecommunications, and finances to effectively crack down on fraud rings. He hopes that students will take the knowledge they learned today home and share it with their families to prevent them from being defrauded and potentially impacting their future lives.