Recently, students in Perth have been targeted by con artists who manipulate them into staging their own kidnappings to extort ransoms from their parents. Since early August, four students aged 18 to 22 and their families have fallen victim to this new scam, which has become increasingly common across Australia.
The scammers use information gathered on social networks to falsify documents and make their victims believe they are linked to a crime committed on Australian territory and threatened with extradition to China, their country of origin, or prosecution if they don’t pay a large sum of money, explains various local media.
The scammers then advise them to organize a fake kidnapping and send photos to their relatives abroad to extort the necessary money. Australian police recently reported that the parents of a 17-year-old student received a WeChat message from their son containing recordings and photos of him with his hands and feet bound, last March. The fake kidnappers demanded 215,000 Australian dollars (143,000 U.S. dollars) be sent to a Chinese bank account, threatening the student’s safety if the ransom was not paid.
A family friend reported the incident to the police that morning, and Perth detectives located the teenager in a hotel a few hours later. The student admitted that he was not being held hostage, but had been forced to fake his abduction as part of a scam.
A global phenomenon
“Scammers take advantage of their vulnerability and exploit the distance between victims and their families,” says Perth Police Station Manager Peter Foley, interviewed by 7news. “It is virtually impossible for families to confirm that the victim is safe and well and that no charges have been laid against them by overseas authorities. Feelings of helplessness and shame discourage victims from contacting the police after being scammed,” he adds.
The Australian police have issued a series of recommendations to prevent other foreign students from falling into the same trap, advising students to contact the police if someone calls threatening them with deportation or arrest.
A similar incident was reported in the USA last January. Kai Zhuang, a 17-year-old Chinese student, was reported missing near Salt Lake City, only to be found a few days later, alone, in the mountains north of the city.
As reported by VOA News, crooks had tried to obtain a ransom of $80,000 by making Zhuang’s family believe he had been kidnapped. The criminals had posed as Chinese police officers to convince the student to leave his place of residence and move into a hotel. They then threatened his family.
On January 3, just a few days after Kai Zhuang’s discovery, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning about fake Chinese kidnappings in the United States.
“Chinese people are naturally afraid of the police,” explained Han Jiang Du Diao Seng, a U.S.-based Chinese national interviewed by VOA at the time. He manages YouTube and Weibo accounts, which are very popular among Chinese exchange students on American soil.
Mr. Seng explained that he had helped four Chinese students who were victims of fake kidnappings. The criminals, posing as Chinese officials, start by asking the students if they have recently received money from their families. If they answer in the affirmative, they make the students believe that the money has been sent illegally. They then ask the students to stop communicating with their families while the authorities look into the matter. This quickly leads the family to believe that their child has been kidnapped.
Number of scams seems to be increasing
Cybersecurity experts told VOA that there is no precise information on the number of cases of fake kidnapping in the United States or worldwide. However, the number of cases seems to be increasing.
And improved technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), could facilitate the practice. AI can create “deepfakes”: false sounds and images that can give the impression that victims have actually been abducted, said Payton, CEO of Fortalice Solutions, a security company.
Last February, police in Canada issued a warning about a wave of scams targeting Chinese nationals in the country, stating that students had been swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by crooks claiming to be Chinese government officials. Similar problems were observed in Japan last summer. Local police reported at least six Chinese students targeted by bogus kidnapping schemes, prompting the Chinese embassy in Tokyo to issue a warning against such scams in August.
Bournemouth University in England also issued a warning about scams targeting Chinese students a few months ago.
