Three men and a woman were put on trial at Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday for allegedly engaging in a mobile phone message scam worth nearly 4 million yuan (US$510,000).

The four were said to be part of a larger Taiwan-based gang that may have cheated mobile phone users out of at least 10 million yuan (US$1.27 million) overall.

Police arrested 89 suspects in connection with the case last November, but the two main alleged culprits, nicknamed Dou Jiang and Rou Zong, were still at large. They are both said to be from Taiwan.

Since August last year, the four suspects appearing in court yesterday, led by Shi Wenhua, a 31-year-old from Taiwan, sent text messages randomly to mobile phone users in Shanghai and Beijing saying that their credit cards had been used. The messages provided phone numbers for inquires.

When people responded to the messages, they were told that their credit card information had been stolen and that someone had used the information to make purchases. The victims were then given a phone number to call to report the theft and encouraged transfer their money to a "safe account" provided by the gang. Members of the gang immediately withdrew the funds after they had been transferred.

Ji Xiufen, one of the victims who testified in court, said she had lost 79,000 yuan (US$9,875) this way. "I thought it (the message) was from my bank and I worried about my money after receiving it."

Shi told the court yesterday that each member of the gang played a different role in the scam.

Xu Yangshan, 28, from Fujian Province, said he was in charge of sending messages and received 1,500 yuan (US$187.5) for his efforts. "I sent out thousands of messages each day," he said.

By the time Shi was arrested on November 3, 2005, the four suspects had cheated 98 victims out of 3.94 million yuan (US$492,500).

No verdict was given yesterday, but if convicted, the gang's members could face prison terms of more than 10 years.

The government launched a campaign against mobile phone message scams last year. From July to October alone, Shanghai police received more than 16,000 reports of fraudulent cell phone messages.

By the end of last year, China had 388 million mobile phone users. According to a survey last month by the Internet Society of China, each mobile phone user receives about eight junk messages each week.

(China Daily December 5, 2006)