A court in east China's Shandong Province Tuesday began hearing a telecom fraud case involving the death of a teenager, which sparked a nationwide outcry last year.
The trial against seven defendants was held at the intermediate people's court of Linyi City.
Xu Yuyu, a high school graduate from Linyi, died of cardiac arrest in August 2016 after losing 9,900 yuan (1,440 U.S. dollars) of her university tuition fees to telecom fraudsters.
Chinese police caught more than 19,300 telecom fraud suspects in 2016.