Eighty-five people were sentenced to one to 13 years in jail by a court in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region today for cheating over 8,500 people of over 10 million yuan (USD 1.59 mn) in a major telecom fraud case.
The case surfaced after a resident in Ordos reported to police that he was cheated of about 35,000 yuan (USD 5,560) in a suspected telecom fraud in July 2016.
Following an investigation, police arrested 85 suspects in November 2016 from central China's Hubei Province.
During the probe, police found that the convicts had published sham medical advertisements to collect contact information of the victims.
They contacted them by mobile or social networking platforms, pretending to be relatives or students of medical workers, and convinced them to buy fake healthcare or food products.
From mid-June to November 2016, more than 8,900 victims were cheated over 10 million yuan, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Three main convicts were sentenced to 11 to 13 years in prison, while another 82 were given prison terms of between one and six years.
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