8 nabbed for million-yuan medical tour swindle
Police have detained eight people in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province for allegedly defrauding more than a million yuan through an “anti-cancer medical tour” in Dubai.
Police in Liuhe district, Nanjing recently transferred the suspects to the procuratorial department after the police solved the case and returned 1.3 million yuan ($220,000) to the victims, the Nanjing-based Yangtze Evening Post reported on Thursday.
More than 1,000 victims in 26 cities across China have been defrauded by the criminal organization, involving 650 million yuan, the newspaper said.
Mei Buping, a business owner in Changzhou of Jiangsu, Mei’s wife Li Suqin, and three of the couple’s friends were defrauded of more than 1.5 million yuan for “anti-cancer treatments” in Dubai during a medical tour in April 2017, according to the Liuhe police.
Mei and Li were invited to Dubai by the beauty salon that Li frequently visited in Changzhou. The tour, which the salon claimed to be free and only for VIP clients, included a health examination in a “Dubai Royal Hospital.”
The tourists were then fooled by the criminal organization, whose members acted as guides, hospital chairman and medical experts, that the five “all were going to have cancer” and received treatment in several days, which were later proved to be hormone injections.
The police detained the eight in April. The suspects targeted the group who spent a lot of money on body maintenance but are poorly educated and cannot speak English.
When the five arrived in Dubai on April 11, 2017, they received a luxury welcome – checked into a five-star hotel and driven by a stretch limousine.
The Global Times found Chinese websites with photos of Dubai’s Iranian Hospital which was called the “Dubai Royal Hospital,” which is said to be “one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world” and is “frequently visited by celebrities.”
Police said one of the “medical experts” who treated the victims, known as Doctor Qiao or Professor Silly, was actually a jobless elderly woman from Northeast China.