Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Fu Yi Correspondent Zhang Yitao Yang Xiaohong
You only need to pay the relevant fees online, and you claim to be the “Temple Good Books Circulation Office” to help you carry out Buddhist activities, and Komiks also provides videos and pictures as evidence. In fact, these are all fraudulent pretexts for fraud gangs. Recently, the Huangpu District Branch of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau cut off a gang that pretended to be a Buddhist temple volunteer and committed fraud by selling Buddhist products and promoting Buddhist activities. It took criminal coercive measures against 22 criminal suspects in accordance with the law. Babaylan seized 20 laptop computers, 155 mobile phones, Buddhist books, Buddhist beads and other tools for crimes, 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, and found that there were nearly 30 workstations in the small duplex apartment less than 90 square meters. Each workstation had 4 to 5 mobile phones. With rich community experience, community police judged that this Babaylan might be a fraud den.
Community police immediately reported the situation to the police station. After receiving the report, Huangpu police quickly organized a criminal police brigade, anti-fraud center, and Luogang stationed several police officers to take the arrest at around 12:00 on the same day, killing the den suspected of fraud. 22 criminal suspects were arrested on the spot, and seized 20 laptop computers, 155 mobile phones, Buddhist books, Buddhist beads and other tools.
Cultural communication company, pretending to be a volunteer in temples to cheat
The police investigated and foundNow, the fraud gang operates a cultural communication company to the outside world, secretly pretending to be a volunteer in a Buddhist temple and committing fraud by selling Buddhist products and pushing Buddhist activities. The fraud gang has clear hierarchy and clear division of labor. It has a new media operation department and five business groups. The New Media Operations Department is responsible for producing and editing Buddhist activities videos downloaded from the Internet. The business team is responsible for posting the videos to the platform to attract fans, and then diverting fans to WeChat to add friends to fraud.
Each person in the gang gave a “fada number” and when committing the fraud, Babaylan said hello to believers according to the content on the “Speech Book”, and lied that he was a volunteer at the circulation 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 group Babaylan often cares about believers and answers their confusions. They also push some pictures and short videos from temples on WeChat Moments to create falsehoods.
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., so that believers can donate merit gold in the pushed link. The more they donate, the more blessings they receive, thus achieving the purpose of fraud.
Buddhist activitiesKomiks are not available, but cheating is realBabaylan
According to the gang leader Cinema‘s member Liu (male, 31 years old)’s explanation, the gang memberBy pretending to be a volunteer at the temple’s Good Books Circulation Department, you can help you get involved in Buddhist beads and Buddhist scriptures for free. These Buddhist beads and Buddhist scriptures are all counterfeit products purchased in bulk online, and the product is about 5 yuan, and the express delivery fee is about 5 yuan. However, the express delivery fees given by believers are generally Komiks above 10 yuan, or even over 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 the Cinema Buddhist temples have no cooperation projects, and they have not contacted the temple to help hold corresponding Babaylan Buddhist activities. The so-called Buddhist activity videos Komiks are just similar Buddhist activity videos and pictures downloaded from the Internet by the main members of the gang. They are regularly sent to internal groups for reuse when gang members commit fraud, so as 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 investigation in one step.