If you are a Chinese immigrant, live in a region of the United States that has many Chinese immigrants, speak Mandarin, and would be flustered to suddenly be contacted by the Chinese government—be on guard against a certain kind of scam robocall that was in the news several years ago.
Non-Mandarin speakers may find the robocalls baffling—or annoying—and just hang up. But some Chinese immigrants who have followed the robocall’s prompts have found themselves sucked into an international phone scam….
The robocall messages are usually some variation on [a] theme: This is the consulate; we have an important document that needs to be picked up; it may affect your status in the U.S.; press a button to speak with a specialist—and that is when a connection is made to a live scammer.
That person then tries to execute what is known as a “parcel scam” — pretending to be from a courier company and claiming that a package addressed to the victim is connected to a criminal case. The phone call is then transferred to a fake police officer who says that it’s a money laundering investigation and that if the victim transfers money to a Hong Kong bank account, the police will resolve the case.
As thus summarized by an NPR report from May 2018, the scam doesn’t seem very plausible. But the NYPD estimated at the time that a few dozen New Yorkers victimized by it had lost $3 million. Chinese living in other regions and countries were also reportedly targeted.
The calls seemed to originate in China.
Fear of China
Ben Yates, a Hong Kong lawyer “specializing in cybersecurity and cryptocurrencies,” understood why some overseas Chinese may be particularly vulnerable to the scam.
“If you’re based overseas and you’re from mainland China, then you may be concerned about the authorities questioning what you’re doing,” he told NPR. “Whether it involves transferring money out of China or other aspects of your activities, it could be all kinds of things the authorities could have an interest in.
“You have to understand the sort of regime they’re used to dealing with and the sort of political and legal system that operates in mainland China that might be quite different to what you’re used to in the U.S.”
In a March 2019 public service announcement, the FBI described a variation of the scam in which “victims are contacted by individuals claiming to be from Chinese credit card companies saying they have overdue balances. Victims are instructed they must work with Chinese law enforcement to address the outstanding payment.
“Victims are then transferred to ‘investigators,’ who advise victims they must wire funds to accounts located almost exclusively in China or Hong Kong to resolve the situation. Victims may also be requested to pay via credit card or virtual currency. If the victims do not cooperate, they are threatened with deportation, loss of assets, and/or jail.”
The end?
There doesn’t seem to be any reporting later than the NPR piece or the FBI alert. Maybe Mandarin scam robocalls have faded out. Or maybe they are still around but are no longer being publicized.
One possibility not raised by NPR or the FBI is that the Chinese government itself has been behind some of the robocalls. No evidence of this was reported. But since the Chinese Communist Party is willing to do anything to assert its power, including harass and forcibly repatriate Chinese nationals living overseas, we probably shouldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand.
