Beijing police recently released the modus operandi (MO) of criminals who spread rumors online about stolen, missing or robbed children to trick people into giving money.
Rumors on alleged stolen children have flooded China's social media and caused widespread anxiety over human trafficking activities. However, the public security bureau of Beijing on June 30 released an MO on its Sina Weibo account to warn people that most of "news stories" similar to this are meant to swindle people.
The criminals' MO starts with "Attention! xx [a number of] traffickers are heading to xx [a place name] to rob kids!" and goes on to describe how the families of the children fought against the traffickers before police arrived.
Such posts will conclude with a strong appeal to "watch out for such traffickers and your retweet might save a family from losing their child."
Those widely spread posts usually include details such as time, location and appearance of traffickers, and claim the information has been confirmed by police but much of the information is false, Beijing police said on its Weibo.
The Beijing Youth Daily reported on Tuesday that huge amounts of money could be generated through such widely circulated posts.
A man surnamed Wu, 26, from Zhangzhou, Fujian Province told the Daily that he had earned 200,000 yuan ($32,200) in a month by running over 80 social media accounts, on which appalling stories like this were fabricated.
Wu then made money off advertising on accounts with enormous followers. Wu has been detained thrice for spreading rumors, the report added.
Police in Beijing's Fangshan district squashed a rumor that claimed about 1,000 people rushed to Beijing to steal children, saying they did not receive any relevant alarm and were requesting for no more retweets.
"Government should do more, like using multiple channels to release information in time, to stop rumors from spreading any further," said Ma Guohua, a lawyer from the Youtian Law Firm in Beijing.
