Help Raise Awareness about Kidnapping Scam Involving Chinese Students

Please distribute this information through your networks to help raise awareness and keep students safe.

Background

  1. Students have been contacted through a phone call from someone usually speaking in Mandarin and claiming to be a representative from a Chinese authority.
  2. The caller convinces the victim that they have been implicated in a crime in China, and that they must pay a fee to avoid legal action.
  3. The victim is then threatened or coerced into transferring large amounts of money into unknown offshore bank accounts.
    1. In some instances, victims are convinced to fake their own kidnappings – known as a ‘virtual kidnapping’.
  4. When the victim’s family is unable to establish contact with their child in Australia, they send large ransom payments in exchange for their ‘release’.
  5. Police have asked students who feel they may have been targeted to contact the Chinese Consulate or Embassy, and report the incident to police.

Media releases are listed below:

Virtual Kidnappings
Virtual Kidnapping Simplified Chinese 
Virtual Kidnapping Traditional Chinese