BEIJING: One hundred people received prison terms and fines for defrauding the elderly in Beijing on Thursday amid the capital’s intensified efforts to fight fraud-related crimes.
Defendants in 15 separate cases were given sentences ranging from eight months to life imprisonment by the capital’s eight courts for committing the offenses, which included fundraising fraud and bilking people out of their savings, according to a statement from the Beijing High People’s Court. The defendants returned more than 11 million yuan ($1.6 million) to victims, the statement said. “Many of the defendants cheated the elderly out of money by pretending to be travel agents, nursing home providers or healthcare product merchants,” said Luo Yong, a judge from the high court’s No 2 Criminal Division. She told media that many of the criminals made use of the country’s policies benefiting the elderly to lure them and gain their trust at first, and then forged nursing services and investment projects to cheat them. Some had also used the promise of art sales to defraud seniors, Luo added. Among the sentences handed down on Thursday, the Beijing Chaoyang District People’s Court gave sentences ranging from 30 months to 12 and a half years to 14 defendants after they were found to have cheated about 160 people out of about 24 million yuan by lying about their ability to sell art works between January 2016 and April 2019.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
