“Especially for Chinese students, here without any family support, they get scared when they get information like this,” said Professor Lennon Chang, a senior professor of criminal justice at Monash University who studied the scam. “Talented criminals understand this psychological emotion and use it as a way to guide students below the pace.”
Scammers use technology to reinforce fraud. Professor Chang said they generally mask where they call from, presenting a number from the Chinese Embassy that can be found online. In some cases, they ask the victim to submit a photo or modify what they find online to create an image or video that appears to show the kidnapped person.
Parents, far away, usually receive the ransom demand over the phone and then send what appears to be evidence of a crime to them.
Concerned about their children, perhaps after reading about the actual kidnappings of Chinese students in Canada and the United States, some parents in China comply. In a Sydney case last month, a family paid A $ 2 million ($ 1.4 million) to unknown criminals. In the other cases, the payments ranged from a few thousand dollars to more than $ 200,000.
“During this time period, with the pandemic and with less human contact, parents may not know who to contact if they receive a message like that, or for the student, they may not be able to speak to people they trust to verify if this kind of message is true, “said Professor Chang. “This type of isolation could create some opportunity for criminals.”
When the police are called, it usually takes only a few hours to find out what really happened. But the names of the victims have rarely been published, and no intellectual authors have been identified.
On Tuesday, Australian authorities reminded people to report anyone they suspected was pretending to be from the Chinese government.
