Chinese Gang Is Scamming Millions Of People Online On 15 Chaitra 2079, the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office arrested nine Chinese nationals on charges of online fraud. It was alleged by the police that they made Nepalis deposit money in the name of online investment and later abscond. Similarly, on Chaitra 18, three Chinese nationals who were defrauding Nepalis in the name of online shopping were arrested.
Similarly, a Nepali working for a ‘loan app’ which was operating to cheat common people in India was arrested. The operators of such loan apps were also Chinese citizens. These are only some representative events of Nepal.
According to The Guardian, the Chinese gang is active in deceiving more than 800,000 people in Europe and America online. Especially Chinese citizens are active in operating fake online shopping platforms from China, forcing common people to place cards on them and committing fraud.
In an international investigation by The Guardian, it has been found that the Chinese have prepared more than 76 thousand websites for online fraud. The UK’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute has even defined it as the world’s largest online fraud network.
Analyzing the data obtained by journalists and IT experts from various fields, it is seen that online fraud is being conducted in an organized manner. It has been seen that the people active in this are more knowledgeable about technology and under the guise of this, the web of fraud has been spread.
Their online shopping websites are in English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian languages. Various types of attractive products are kept on that website. Also, they convince the public that the website is linked with Dior, Nike, Lactos, Versace Prada, and other premium brands. However, in reality, those websites are not connected to the brand in any way.
It appears that the network first created a website in 2015. More than 1 million orders have been received in the last three years, according to The Guardian’s analysis. Not all orders seem to have been successfully paid. However, during the same period, it has been seen that an amount equal to five million euros (about seven billion 18 billion 25 million rupees more) has arrived.
Analyzing all these data, it is said that more than eight lakh customers have been cheated by such fake websites so far. More than 476,000 people have submitted their sensitive credit card details. Likewise, their contact numbers, email addresses, and postal addresses have also reached the Chinese network.
The data of all these fake websites has been brought out by Cyber Research Labs, a cyber security consultancy in Germany. It is claimed that there are several GB of such data with them.
To cheat the public, the developer team first created such a system, which automatically created and published the website. And, there was rapid development work on it. And some shops were also operated to make it look like the real thing. The rest of the website was given to other groups to operate.
According to the data provided by cyber security consultancy, access to such fake websites was taken from 210 logs in 1015. Thus, looking at the location of a website operating from a network, it is seen from the IP address that it is operating from the Fujian state of China.
“User data is more valuable than sales,” Simon Myler, director of policy and communications at Britain’s Stop Scam agency, told the Guardian.
According to SR Labs, a company that protects various organizations from cyber attacks, this online fraud has been conducted on two levels. First is collecting credit card details, including fake payment gateways, and forcing users to store their sensitive data, but not handling the funds. In the second stage, the money will be deducted by pretending to sell. The Guardian said it got this information from PayPal, Stripe, and other payment providers.
It has been claimed that they have operated such a network using expired domain names in particular. In this case, the owner of the brand or website does not know that someone else is operating their domain name. More than 2.7 million expired domain names are the first weapon used by scammers.
It has also been seen that the victim who has been cheated finds the number from the name of the website and insults its official operator. According to the Guardian, this is how the fraud network is spread worldwide and the developer is kept. And, it seems that they were paid by a Chinese bank.