A Cohort of College Students Defrauds $6,000,000 From Over 200 Foreigners

• Author: Wang Li

Since October of 2010, incidences of swindling on the Alibaba B2B (Business to Business) Platform have been increasing. In April of this year, police in Fujian’s Putian arrested 36 suspects, the vast majority of whom were college graduates born in the 70’s and 80’s with relatively strong English abilities. As of late June, the police had determined that 208 foreigners from America, Canada, and England, among other countries, had been defrauded, and the amount from the cases involved totaled over six million American dollars.

The college students’ method of swindling involved withholding goods after receiving payment, or in the cases they did send out products, substituting good products with inferior ones. They copied product...