14 DAY TRIAL // Authorities in Philippines and China have arrested over one hundred members of a crime syndicate involved in a variety of telecommunications, bank and credit card scams.
A number of 24 men were arrested Tuesday during simultaneous raids coordinated by Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at six locations in Manila .
One suspect resisted arrest and attacked an NBI agent with a knife. As a result, he was shot in the stomach and was immediately taken to the hospital.
The Philippine Star reports that, at first, authorities did not even know the nationalities of the suspects and the fact that very few of them understood English made communication very difficult.
Interrogators eventually managed to get them to write down their names, which they did with Chinese characters. The Chinese embassy eventually sent a representative to help establish their identity.
The suspected leader of the gang is a man known as Wei Hao Lo, however, it seems that he wasn't amongst the men arrested in Manila.
At the same time, Chinese police detained around 100 individuals believed to be members of the same crime syndicate, which stole over $130 million from people in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Aside from credit card counterfeiting, the gang resorted to intimidation in order to obtain money from victims. According to investigators, they impersonated judges, prosecutors and police officers to trick people into thinking they owe money to the government.
"They will call the would-be victims that the latter has committed a crime, or has a pending charge and needs to settle the case with the Chinese government by paying a particular amount.
"Some of their victims turned out to be relatives of Chinese government officials. Most of their victims are also Chinese retirees who have received huge amount of money," said Cesar Bacani, who leads the NBI Anti Fraud and Action Division.