China sees drop in telecom, online fraud cases

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- China saw fewer cases involving telecom and internet fraud from June to November compared to the same period in the previous year, the Ministry of Public Security said on Friday.

More than 549,000 individuals suspected of being involved in these illegal activities were captured in the first 11 months of this year, figures from the ministry showed.

Police across the country managed to intercept a total of 326.5 billion yuan (around 51 billion U.S. dollars) of funds, as well as 1.55 billion scam phone calls and 1.76 billion scam text messages during the same period, preventing 23.37 million people from falling victim to such fraud.