China arrests one of most-wanted telecoms fraud suspects: Xinhua

[SHANGHAI] China has arrested one of its top 10 most-wanted fraud suspects, who is accused of conspiring with others to swindle 35 million yuan (S$7.3 million) in a telecoms scam, state news agency Xinhua has reported.

Wen Longjian, 32, is accused of defrauding a corporate accountant by impersonating the head of a company on an instant messaging app last December, Xinhua said late on Tuesday, quoting the Ministry of Public Security.

Mr Wen evaded arrest after an earlier police operation detained 39 suspects and froze bank accounts containing more than 28 million yuan but was caught in China's southwestern province of Guangxi on Monday, the report quoted police as saying.

Reuters was unable to reach Mr Wen for comment and it was not immediately clear if he had legal representation.

China is battling an explosion of telecoms fraud that has cost billions of dollars in losses and driven some victims to suicide, say authorities in Beijing who blame many of the scams on criminal gangs based in rival Taiwan.

Despite political tensions, the two sides have in recent years cooperated on investigating such scams, but Taiwan says mainland authorities sometimes do not provide enough evidence for them to do anything.

REUTERS