Police teams were sent to at least five provinces in southern and eastern China in search of the suspects and four of them were detained as of late last night, a provincial police official said.
The suspects are all male, aged from 19 to 35, three of whom are from Fujian Province and another from Chongqing Municipality.
The case came to public attention after widespread media reports about the death of Xu Yuyu, an 18-year-old high school graduate in Linyi City, who died of a cardiac arrest on Aug 19, after she was duped by the telecom fraudsters.
She was reported to have lost 9,900 yuan (USD 1,490) from her university tuition fees to telecom fraudsters.
“My daughter was so shocked and sad when we came out of the police station. She was sitting in my tricycle and when I turned back to check on her, she had collapsed on the tricycle,” the girl’s father Xu Lianbin said.
Xu’s mother is disabled and her father works at a construction site. It took the family a lot of work to raise enough money for her first year fee and losing it all was unbearable, Xu’s relatives told Xinhua.
Just a few miles away, another student, Song Zhenning, was also reported to have died similarly, having lost money in another fraud case.
The third incident was also reported from here.
The Ministry of Public Security issued arrests yesterday, state run Xinhua news agency reported.
PTI