Student ‘told to rob long-haired woman’
Print Edition
A STUDENT has been detained for allegedly robbing a woman on the instructions of a scammer claiming to be a police officer.
The 20-year-old suspect, surnamed Wang, is said to have grabbed a wallet containing 20,000 yuan (US$3,130) from a woman in Yangpu District.
Wang, second-year student at a Yangpu academic institution, told reporters that he was told to look for “a woman with long hair” withdrawing cash, as she was a criminal.
If he didn’t rob her, Wang would be arrested for a financial crime, the bogus police officer said.
The student, who comes from southwest China’s Yunnan Province, said he received a call on July 24 purporting to be from Shanghai Post Office.
The caller told Wang that police were looking to speak to him regarding suspicious mail containing money loans.
The same day, Wang received a call from someone claiming to be a police officer from the public security bureau in Chaoyang District in Beijing,
“Officer Chen” told Wang he was suspected of involvement in a crime through selling his bank account to the ringleader.
Wang was convinced by “Officer Chen” that he must pay 12,000 yuan “bail money” into an account to avoid being held.
The student told reporters that when he was only able to scrabble together 3,400 yuan, “Officer Chen” instructed him to carry out a robbery.
Speaking to the scammer on his phone in the bank where he was transferring the cash, Wang was told to look for “a woman with long hair, and roughly his height” withdrawing cash.
When Wang described a woman at an ATM who fitted the bill to “Officer Chen,” the bogus policeman said she was part of a criminal gang.
“They said two plainclothes officers in the bank would protect me when I robbed her, and that if I didn’t do as I was told I would be arrested,” Wang told the Shanghai Morning Post.
Wang followed the woman and grabbed her wallet.
Police said they identified Wang soon after and found him and the wallet in his dormitory the next day.
Wang had transferred 19,600 yuan to the scammers, spent 100 yuan on a taxi and kept the remainder, said police.
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