23 Taiwanese fraud suspects arrested one year after fleeing Uganda

Taipei-- Taiwanese police have arrested 23 telecommunication fraud suspects who formerly operated in Uganda and allegedly stole more than 100 million Chinese yuan from a government agency in China, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said Friday.

The 23 people, who were captured in Taoyuan, Taichung, Nantou, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung on Thursday after more than a year on the run, were members of a Taiwanese fraud ring that had set up a base in Uganda to defraud people in China, the bureau said.

Among their victims was the Economic Development Bureau of Duyun in Guizhou province.

The bureau received a phone call on Dec. 20, 2015 from the fraudsters posing as prosecutors pretending to be investigating a criminal case, and they successfully fooled the bureau's cashier into transferring 117 million Chinese yuan out of its bank account, the CIB said.

It was the single biggest case of fraud in China's history, the CIB said.

Trying to evade arrest, the fraudsters fled back to Taiwan from Uganda as soon as they obtained the money and hid separately in Taoyuan, Taichung, Nantou, Changhua, Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the bureau said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel