A VISITOR to Shenzhen from Shandong Province, surnamed Ma, lost a total of 580,000 yuan (US$84,158) by investing in precious metals through an online operation that turned out to be a fraudulent gang, a TV program of Shenzhen Media Group reported.

    The victim said that she accidentally took a phone call last year from a man who claimed to be an investment manager from a company investing in precious metals in Dalian, a city in Liao-ning Province.

    The man, known as Liu, added Ma as a friend on WeChat after the phone call and invited her to join an investment group where many people were showing off the money they had earned by posting snapshots of their bank accounts.

    Believing in Liu and the others in the WeChat group, Ma decided to make an investment in order to earn huge profits.

    “I had observed more than three months before I invested 100,000 yuan because that was the entry amount, and Liu said he would arrange for an instructor to teach me how to operate the online investment,” said Ma. She earned more than 10,000 yuan overnight with her initial investment.

    Since November last year, Ma continued to invest more of her savings, and money she borrowed from other people, into online trades, while hiding the truth from her family. Ma said that her motivation was that they would need a lot of money if her 21-year-old son got married in the next few years.

    “I have invested a total of 600,000 yuan, which helped earn 80,000 yuan over a short period of time, but then I began to lose money,” she said. Ma’s balance dropped to around 160,000 yuan in about only a week.

    Following her “teacher’s” instructions, Ma bought another mobile phone so that she could keep in contact with her “teacher” on one phone while operating the investment on the other.

    According to Ma, Liu arranged for another instructor, surnamed Wang, to guide her after she started to be panic about the losses. However, her balance continued to decrease. Gradually, 20,000 yuan was all Ma had left.

    The woman later found that all of the phone numbers that had contacted her were registered in Shenzhen and not in Dalian as the manager and instructors previously said.

    Ma also had someone help her investigate the investment platform who used the name “Dayingjia,” which literally means “big winner,” leading to the discovery of a company named “Jinlixin” that was in fact based in Shenzhen.

    On March 28, Ma came to Shenzhen from her hometown and found the company located on the third floor of a building in Futian District. However, no one was inside the office and all of the furniture had been moved out.

    An employee from another company on the same floor said that a staffer from “Jinlixin” told her that their company had shut down for bankruptcy.

    While in Shenzhen, Ma attempted to call Liu but no one answered. She then called the Shenzhen police. However, while waiting to be questioned at the police station, Liu called to comfort Ma and transferred 1,000 yuan for her food and accommodations. Later, all of the phone numbers that Ma had were powered off.

    A cop from Shenzhen Net Police, Zeng Wei, said that the number of cases involving telecommunications fraud had been increasing in recent years.

    “Residents must stay vigilant even if they are told the investment could bring them a huge profit,” said Zeng. The police also reminded residents to call the police the first time that they suspect a scam.

    An expert from the financial industry, Zhang Wei, said that the risks of investment are proportional to benefits, thus those who guarantee that their investment projects will definitely make a profit are mostly scammers.

    “The systems they use can change the prices at their will, so the profits appearing on the systems are fake to lure victims,” said Zhang. (Zhang Qian)