A fraud ring that had defrauded people of at least NT$150 million (US$5.01 million) after duping them into selling niches they had purchased at columbariums has been busted with 15 suspects arrested by the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau.

The fraud ring was led by a 34-year-old woman surnamed Yang (?) and operated in central Taiwan, the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s 6th Investigation Corps told CNA Thursday.

According to the corps, the ring set up shell companies and work groups to approach people that owned columbarium niches, posing as intermediaries that knew people willing to pay handsomely to buy their niches.

At least 13 people were defrauded of sums ranging from NT$1 million to NT$50 million, adding up to a total of more than NT$150 million, the police said.

To gain the victims’ trust, ring members gifted them protective gear or supplements believed to have the effect of warding off COVID-19, it said.

After the unknowing victims agreed to sell their niches, the scammers would then ask them to buy more niches, urns and contracts for commissioning funeral parlors, claiming that the merchandise would fetch higher resale prices if they came as sets, or that they needed money to establish foundations to help the victims evade high taxes on their multiple sales of columbarium niches, the police said.

At this stage, the victims had each paid between several hundred thousand to tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars.

The suspects later were able to persuade the victims to invest more money by making them believe that they had found more interested buyers or that “the National Taxation Bureau was onto them,” the corps said.

When the victims ran out of money, the scammers would cut off contact with them, it said.

Police said that in June, they had raided the ring’s hideouts in Xitun District, Taichung, and other areas, and uncovered handouts containing spiels they had used, NT$2.09 million in cash, and deeds to columbarium niches and urns.

After taking the suspects in for questioning, they handed them over to the Miaoli District Prosecutors Office and recommended they be prosecuted on charges of fraud, they said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel