On May 17, the Ministry of Public Security reported that police forces from China, the United States, and the UAE recently carried out their first-ever international law enforcement cooperation effort. In Dubai, they jointly cracked down on telecom and internet fraud, dismantling nine scam operations and arresting 276 suspects. Investigations revealed that the criminal syndicate used social media platforms to forge fake ‘romantic’ relationships with victims; after gaining their trust, they lured them into investing in supposedly high-return cryptocurrency projects, resulting in significant financial losses for the victims.
An official from the Ministry of Public Security stated that this joint operation represents a major achievement in China’s efforts to foster international law enforcement collaboration. Moving forward, China plans to deepen cooperation with more countries and keep conducting joint crackdowns to apprehend all suspects involved in telecom fraud. In recent years, this type of scam—which exploits online ‘romance’ as a bait and cryptocurrency investments as a trap—has been spreading rapidly across the Middle East and Southeast Asia, affecting victims from numerous nations. The coordinated action by Chinese and U.S. police forces within the UAE thus stands as a landmark example of cross-border law enforcement cooperation aimed at combating emerging forms of telecom fraud.