Chinese Police Makes Arrest Over Digital Yuan Scam

(Bloomberg) -- Police in China arrested a suspect for allegedly scamming over 300,000 yuan ($47,000) from a woman using the central bank’s new digital currency.

The suspect called the victim earlier this month and impersonated police to obtain her personal information including ID number, bank account details and a photo of her face, Chinese media Thepaper.cn reported Tuesday. The suspect then registered a digital yuan e-wallet for the victim and transferred the money from her bank account, before transferring it again to the suspect’s own e-wallet, according to the report.

Police traced the transaction and identified the suspect as the owner of the receiving e-wallet. The suspect, surnamed Li, was arrested and has admitted that he was also involved in money laundering through the digital yuan for overseas scammers, according to the report.  

Though still in trials, China’s digital yuan has been used by some 140 million individuals, as banks roll out rounds of promotions and discounts to lure consumers. Central bank officials have vowed to strike a balance between protecting users’ privacy and cracking down on crimes. There are four types of e-wallets that can be opened with different levels of personal information, with the least privileged only requiring a phone number.

In a separate case, police in the central province of Henan arrested a group of 11 people on suspicion of using the digital yuan to launder money for scammers in Cambodia, according to a statement on Nov. 5. Several residents of Zhuhai city, in the southern province of Guangdong, have been scammed through digital yuan transaction this month, according to a statement by local police last week.

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With assistance from Bloomberg