A COUPLE was arrested on fraud charges in Shenzhen on Aug. 1, it was reported Sunday.

One victim, surnamed Tian, is a fervent jade collector who lives in Tianjin Municipality. He often likes to search on the Internet for some good-quality jade. In the beginning of 2017, Tian noticed some pictures of glossy pieces of jade for sale on WeChat, the Chinese-language media reported.

After rounds of negotiations, Tian transferred 1 million yuan (US$148,754) to the seller’s account for a batch of the jade. Several weeks later, Tian hadn’t received the jade and could not reach the seller either by WeChat or phone. At that time, Tian realized it was a fraud and called the police.

After months of investigation, police tracked down the suspects’ whereabouts in Shenzhen. On the morning of Aug. 1, the police found the suspects, a man surnamed Liu and his wife surnamed Song, at an estate in Luohu District, where a great number of jade stones, mobile phones and laptops were seized on the spot.

Liu and Song pleaded guilty after an interrogation. They swindled Tian out of 1 million yuan pretending to be selling jade on WeChat, and subsequently squandered the money.

Currently, the suspects have been criminally detained on fraud charges. The investigation is ongoing.

(Zhang Yu)