Men jailed for selling bank accounts to scammers

Three unemployed men have been sentenced to prison for selling bank accounts to telecom scammers, a district court said Thursday.

The three defendants, whom the court called Gao Lei, Gao Jie and Song Gang, were charged with "interfering with the management of credit cards," according to a press release from Jing'an District People's Court. Their sentences ranged from six to 18 months in prison.

The defendants started working together in March after they came across an online advertisement of sorts that offered to pay good money for legitimate bank accounts, the court said.

They obtained the bank accounts by paying other unemployed people to open the accounts on their behalf.

The people they hired applied for the accounts with their own State identification cards, allowing the defendants to keep their identities secret.

The defendants each had different responsibilities. Gao Jie and Song sought unemployed people to open the bank accounts, while Gao Lei dealt with the buyers, the court said. The three men earned 30 yuan ($4.95) to 40 yuan for each bank account and card they sold.

The scammers used the accounts in a common telephone scam that seeks to trick residents into transferring money to bank accounts under their control, said Li Hongguang, a court press officer.

The scammers, often posing as police officers, call up potential targets and inform them that their bank accounts have been compromised, usually because of some sort of personal information leak or hacker attack. The scammers then advise the targets to immediately transfer any money they have to a "safe account" that is supposedly under the control of law enforcement. After the transfer is completed, the scammers move the money to a new account or network of accounts that they control.

Police came across the defendants while investigating a telecom scam last year.

In late May, officers caught Song Gang and found 50 bank cards in his possession. He confessed to selling bank accounts and led police to Gao Jie, the court said. Gao Lei gave himself up on June 2.

The Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau solved 2,769 telecom scams in 2013, an increase of about 45 percent over the same period the previous year. It recovered or froze 33.43 million yuan in stolen funds, according to a report in the China Police Daily.

The court also fined each defendant of 10,000 yuan.