Taiwan telcom scammers use mainland as hideout

Police in northwest China's Shaanxi Province detained 11 suspects from Taiwan, hiding on the mainland to conduct telecommunications frauds in Taiwan.

The case came to light when a Taiwan resident was swindled out of more than 21 million new Taiwan dollars (640,000 U.S. dollars) last year, police with the Xi'an public security bureau said on Tuesday.

The scammers operated from three places in Xi'an as well as other localities. They used the Internet to obtain personal information on Taiwan residents, and pretended to be "public officials" defrauding money on the basis of an "information leak" via a "medical insurance card," police said. Endi