37 arrested in telephone-fraud sting

Police in Guangdong province detained 37 suspects in the crackdown on a major telephone fraud gang in seven cities in Guangdong, Sichuan, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.

Huang Guo, deputy director of the Foshan Bureau of Public Security, said, "Police also seized 23 computers, 200 cellphones and more than 9,000 cellphone SIM cards, plus a large number of other telecommunication equipment and bank cards in joint operations that were launched on July 3, 2013."

Woman cheats medical system to pay for treatment

A young woman, who has uremia in Hengshan county, Hunan province, has been sentenced to six years and fined 100,000 yuan ($16,400) for cheating the new rural cooperative medical system out of more than 420,000 yuan to treat her kidney disease, Xiaoxiang Morning News reported.

Anyone can be a victim of fraud

Swindles are so common that they often fail to make the headlines, but they do when the victim is a celebrity. The latest victim is Tang Wei, the leading actress in Ang Lee's 2007 film Lust, Caution, who reportedly lost 210,000 yuan ($34,733) in a telecom fraud.

The elderly are often easy targets for swindlers. In many cases, they are deceived into believing that they have parked their money in the wrong place and they should transfer it to a "secure account" to seek higher returns.