An insidious telecom centre set up to defraud Chinese residents living in Portugal has been foiled in what the Taiwanese press calls ‘the Portuguese holiday resort of Cascais’.
Reports say the call-centre was set up by Taiwan nationals who recruited young people “mostly in financial trouble” to work out of Portugal “a European member country which allows Taiwanese citizens to enter without a visa”.
In little more than a week, these staff members had managed to extort 86,000 euros from their victims by pretending to be officials working for China (either police, or criminal prosecutors).
The message was that victims’ phones had been identified as being responsible for ‘spam’ (unsolicited online messages) and that their bank accounts would be frozen unless they paid fines.
Says Observador, this was the first case of cooperation between authorities in Taiwan and counterparts in Portugal.
All but one of those arrested has agreed to be tried in Taiwan.
Observador adds that in other fraud cases, Taiwanese nationals have been deported to mainland China for trial “something that has caused Taiwanese authorities to protest”, as Taiwan is not officially part of the People’s Republic.
