In the new semester, it seems normal for parents to receive payment notices. But who would have thought that behind the group messages, there might be a well-designed scam. The police in Wuhan, Hubei Province investigated such a case. Someone sneaked into the school parent group and pretended to be a class teacher to issue a charging notice. In just over ten minutes, more than 30 parents were deceived.
At 7:30 in the morning on September 2, the parent group of a school in Wuhan received a payment notice sent by the nickname "Teacher Yuan". The content shows that students’ physical examination, insurance and other related fees need to be collected uniformly.
Ma Long, a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Jianghan District Branch of Wuhan Public Security Bureau: This notice is very standardized in terms of format and tone, and is very close to the group messages that class teacher Yuan usually sends in the group. What's more important is that after this notice was released, one "parent" has already transferred money, and subsequent parents have transferred money one after another.
In just over ten minutes, more than 30 parents paid their fees. After the morning self-study, the real class teacher, Teacher Yuan, noticed something unusual in the group and immediately stopped the transfer and called the police.
Class teacher Teacher Yuan: Around 8:40, I returned to the office. At this time, I saw a lot of messages on my phone. I was also very confused at the time, why were there so many messages? As soon as I saw the message that the parents were transferring money, I immediately told the parents that it was not me who sent it. Stop their behavior and stop paying. Because it is a nickname in this class QQ group, the only difference between him and me is that I am an administrator, I have a title, and I have the titles of administrator and class teacher. This difference is very small and can't be seen if you don't pay attention. So my first reaction was that my account had been hacked, but later I found out that it was not the case. He had just copied my avatar and nickname.
After investigation, the police found that in the early morning of the incident, an unknown account quietly sneaked into the parent group.
Chen Yi, a police officer from Minzu Street Police Station, Jianghan District Branch of Wuhan Public Security Bureau: This group was created by the school to facilitate communication between teachers and students’ parents. This group was added directly by parents after the students brought the group number back. No identity verification is set up. The scammer entered the group chat at about 4 o'clock in the morning, and then committed the crime at about 7 o'clock in the morning. At this time, the teacher is most likely doing self-study in the morning and does not have time to look at his mobile phone.
By the time the real class teacher, Teacher Yuan, found out, more than 30 parents had completed the transfer, and the fake class teacher's account had been canceled.
Zhang Yi, a police officer from the Cyber Security Brigade of Jianghan District Branch of Wuhan Public Security Bureau: At the same time, they also transferred the funds involved in the fraud as soon as possible. They sold the stolen goods by scanning QR codes offline to local merchants. To a certain extent, it avoided the investigation of the public security organs.
Although the account was canceled, the police handling the case still identified the criminal suspect Tan Moumou in Dongguan, Guangdong through research and judgment on the flow of funds.
Zhang Yi, a police officer from the Cyber Security Brigade of Jianghan District Branch of Wuhan Public Security Bureau: We captured the suspect Tan Moumou in an apartment in Dongguan. After interrogating Tan Moumou, it was learned that Tan Moumou had an upstream source of fraud. At the same time, our investigation of this upstream also found that he still settled in Dongguan and did not leave. So arrests were made at the same time, and a total of 5 people were arrested.
So, how did the suspect enter the parent group? How can you hide it from dozens of parents at the same time and commit fraud?
Chen Yi, a police officer from Minzu Street Police Station of Jianghan District Bureau of Wuhan Public Security Bureau: This criminal gang will search for keywords such as "school" and "class", find the corresponding group chat, and then join the group chat. One of them plays the role of the group leader, the class teacher. This member posing as the class teacher will first read the history files and related messages in the group to ensure that the payment information sent will not be the same as that sent by the previous class teacher. Another criminal gang member, after sending the payment information, became the first to join the group, which gave parents a herd mentality and followed suit.
The criminal gang used layers of disguises, and there were real people picking up the charges, making many parents mistakenly believe that this was a normal school fee, allowing the scammers to succeed in a short period of time.
