Several days ago, the Shatilihe branch of Lanzhou City Public Security Bureau, Gansu Province, China received a phone call from a gold shop, reporting:
“Comrade police officer, a man just bought more than 500 thousand yuan worth of gold jewelry from our shop without even looking at the designs or asking for the price. I think there’s something wrong with him.”
Immediately after receiving the call from the person in charge of the gold shop, police officer Ma Shangming immediately led a team to the scene to investigate. The customer said his surname was Deng and he was from Guangxi. He had taken a flight from Guangxi to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and then to Lanzhou City, Gansu Province for a stroll. As he was passing by the gold shop, Deng felt like buying gold, so he went into this shop.
Customer surnamed Deng was arrested while buying a large amount of gold.
After checking, the police found that Deng had used someone else’s bank card to make the payment. In just one purchase, Deng spent 526,000 yuan (about 1.8 billion dong) in total for about 800 grams of gold jewelry.
The results of the inspection of the mobile phone and bank card that Deng used showed that the cardholder had an address in Liaoning Province. Deng used overseas communication software for the transaction. This made the police believe that Deng was likely a social media scammer, so they took him back to the headquarters for interrogation, and at the same time confiscated 2 mobile phones and 2 bank cards involved.
At the police station, Deng confessed that he had used someone else’s bank card, wanting to legalize the proceeds of the crime by buying gold jewelry.
As of now, Deng is subject to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the provisions of Chinese law, on the charge of concealing and hiding the proceeds of the crime, in other words, money laundering. The aforementioned 526,000 yuan has been confiscated.
According to information from the police, this case is related to 4 fraud cases through electronic platforms nationwide. Additional investigations are underway to promptly resolve the case and recover the stolen money and goods.
