On the 19th, China Youth Daily reported that the Beijing Anti-Fraud Center revealed that buying high-end tea has recently become a new method for fraudsters to transfer scam funds. Recently, multiple victims have suffered financial losses after purchasing high-end tea for investment or gifting, as instructed by scammers.
At the end of last year, Ms. Sang, who was renting out her idle home, met a “perfect” tenant. The person claimed to be Mr. Chen, a technical manager at a technology company. After learning all the details about Ms. Sang’s rental, he did not negotiate or pick faults, and readily said he would have the company finance department pay the deposit.
During this period, Mr. Chen asked Ms. Sang to contact him privately through a certain chat app, and sent her an unfamiliar link, asking Ms. Sang to log in to his account and operate gold futures trading. Ms. Sang even put in her own savings to invest together. But she did not realize that the “returns” were nothing but fake numbers on the scam platform.
After transferring two installments of investment funds, the other party asked Ms. Sang to purchase a famous brand of high-end tea to complete the required investment amount. Just like that, more than 700,000 yuan (398,300 MYR) was quickly converted into expensive tea and sent by courier to a small town in Guangdong far away. A few days ago, Ms. Sang was blocked by the other party.
After receiving Ms. Sang’s report, police investigation found that recently there have been several scam cases in Beijing involving requests for victims to purchase the same brand of luxury tea. These victims are not speculating on tea for profit, but are mostly caught up in fake investment and wealth management scams.
Anti-fraud police pointed out that buying high-end tea is a new method for telecom fraudsters to transfer funds. The involved high-end tea costs tens of thousands of yuan per barrel, and due to its collectible value and high liquidity, it has become a money laundering tool for scammers.