China News Service, September 24. According to a report compiled by 1688 News Australia, in recent years, the Australian police, relevant Chinese authorities and the Australian Chinese community have repeatedly warned against "virtual kidnapping" scams, but Chinese students continue to be deceived.

  According to reports, a few days ago, a female Chinese high school student in Sydney fell victim to this scam. After her family paid a ransom of more than A$200,000 to the "kidnapper," the NSW Police found her.

This is just one of nine virtual kidnapping cases reported by the NSW Police this year.

Who are the targets?

How to implement the scam?

  The scammers usually target new Chinese students or members of the Australian Chinese community who do not interact with others.

In the past two years, Ms. Cai (Skye Cai), vice chairman of the Australian Emergency Aid Association (AEAAI), has helped a small number of overseas families of victims by helping them report cases in Australia and providing translation support.

Ms. Cai said that the age of the victims ranged from 17 to 50, but the deceived were usually young people with little social experience.

  She said that based on her personal experience in handling such cases, virtual kidnapping scams usually have four steps and take several months to implement.

  First of all, the victim will receive an automated or real call posing as an authority person, such as pretending to be a government, Chinese embassy, ​​Australian Taxation Office official or policeman, or even a courier company or a staff member of a new crown virus testing center.

As long as the victim participates in the call, the scammer will use the phone or a form on a phishing site to induce them to provide their private information, including their full name, date of birth, and address.

Scammers will also encourage victims to continue to communicate through social networking applications.

  Then, the scammer will accuse the victim of criminal behavior and threaten to use their personal information to impose legal punishment.

This may involve deportation, cancellation of visas, legal action or arrest unless they or their family members pay the ransom.

  The third step is to gain the trust of the victims and tell them that they have become the target of a financial investigation. If the ransom is not paid, it may affect their family members in China.

  Finally, the scammers will say that they need the victim to provide a "guarantee" to solve the problem.

If the victim does not have this much money, they will suggest that the victim pretend to be kidnapped and manipulate their parents to pay.

Scammers will also force victims to take photos and videos of themselves tied up with ropes and blindfolded, and then send them to their families.

The victim is then forced to move to an unknown location, such as a hotel, while cutting off all contact with the outside world.

In order to cover up the conspiracy, scammers will also claim that the investigation is very sensitive and cannot disclose to family members or report to the police.

Why are so many people deceived?

  NSW Director of Criminal Investigations Chief Superintendent Darren Bennett said in a statement that virtual kidnapping "has been developed by transnational criminal gangs over the past ten years, aimed at exploiting people's trust in the authorities."

He said, “Although these calls seem to be made randomly, the crooks seem to be targeting vulnerable members of the Chinese community in Australia.”

  Ms. Cai said that the victims are usually international students who have just arrived in Australia, many of whom are high school students.

"Liars play the same old tricks every year, but the victims are endless.... They are used to being taken care of at home, but now they have to live independently, but they have no ability to see through the scam. That's why they are the most common targets." Ms. Cai said that through conversations with the victims and their parents, she learned that before the incident, the parents and children often lacked communication.

  Melbourne Chinese clinical psychologist Ms. Wu (Queenie Wu) agreed with Ms. Cai's observation.

She said that those parents who are close or in constant contact with their children can usually see the flaws when they see pictures of their children or come into contact with scammers.

"Because of the distance between the children and their parents in China, when they encounter this kind of thing, they often ask their friends for help instead of their parents, but they may be blinded because of this." She said, "The other point is that some international students are burdened with The family’s high expectations are very afraid of doing something wrong here and affecting their studies...so they will be very worried and anxious. The liar is taking advantage of this psychology.

What can the victim do if he is caught in a conspiracy?

  Ms. Wu said that in addition to economic losses, experiences such as virtual kidnapping may cause long-term trauma to victims, including difficulty in trusting others.

"They will feel ashamed and embarrassed, and they will feel guilty for injuring their families," she said. "In addition, their privacy has been violated because the scammers have a lot of their personal information."

  The police stated that if anyone receives a call involving a violent threat to ask for money, they should immediately hang up, verify the statement with the official department, and report the case to the police.

The police encourage people who believe they have been deceived to submit preliminary reports through the ReportCyber ​​website.

The website will collect detailed information and send it to the police for further evaluation.

If anyone thinks he is in danger and needs immediate assistance from the police, it is recommended to call 000 to report to the police.