Chinese Scammers Sent to Jail After Being Convicted of Larceny

The Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai has ordered four local men to serve prison between six years and half years to eight long years after they were found to commit larceny. The court has also ordered the men to pay a fine between 40,000 and 60,000 Yuan.

According to reports from the media, the four men, namely Yu Li, Zhang Wei, Chen Feng and another fellow conspirator, Zhao Gang, illegally withdrew money from cash machines. Thus, they committed theft of over 100,000 Yuan ($14,000) from online bank accounts of consumers after installing a Trojan horse that behaved like a spyware program.

In just about a month, they pilfered 127,800 Yuan ($18,000) from three victims' bank accounts from where they transferred the amount into a Yu Li's account before drawing out cash from different ATMs. The fourth man was punished for 30 months in jail because he hid illegal earnings.

The court had also come to know that the individuals discussed capturing identities using malware to hack into Internet bank accounts during early 2007.

Incidentally, for a cyber criminal to stay in prison for eight years means a tough punishment compared to earlier cases. It seems that China is thinking this would improve its international reputation at least to some extent. As of now, China occupies the position of the third most spamming country worldwide following the US, which generates 21.3% of world spam and Russia, 8.3%.

Further, IT control and security company, Sophos, warns that hackers were clearly threatening with their online crimes. This comes after the Chinese court announced the hefty prison sentences to the four men.

According to Senior Technology Consultant, Graham Cluley, for Sophos, hackers normally think hard and long before taking the risk of embarking on the life of cyber crime. According to him, the eight-year prison sentence was the harshest punishment ever-observed in relation to the use of malware. In China, staying in jail for a reward as small as in the present case proves how dangerous it is for cyber criminals to gamble, as reported by the infozine on March 25, 2008.

Related article: Chinese Hackers Threatening Korean Game Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 4/2/2008