South Australian Police lift lid on how scammers target international students, including a Chinese woman conned out of $600k

From the moment she stepped foot on South Australian soil, a young female student was threatened with arrest by scammers pretending to be law enforcement.

Officer in charge of Finance and Cybercrime Investigation Branch Detective Superintendent Adam Rice said often those targeted do not want to question a purported authority. Picture: Matt Loxton

As cashed-up international students step onto the tarmac at Adelaide Airport they become the target of scammers threatening arrest – or worse – in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After arriving in South Australia ready to start their tertiary studies, a Chinese student forked out more than $600,000 over six months in fear of arrest.

Inside the scam

It begins via encrypted web messaging applications or cold-calls by people pretending to be authorities from their home countries.

The students are pressured and threatened with arrest if they do not comply with demands for money.

In some cases, couriers are recruited locally to aid in fund transfers and callers also had the capacity to “spoof” phone numbers so scam calls appeared to come from legitimate authorities.

Why scammers target international students

These threat of arrest scams have caught the watchful eye of South Australian Police as international student numbers soar past pre-Covid levels.

Cybercrime Investigation Detective Section Senior Sergeant Adam Serafini said international students were a juicy target for scammers because they are required to prove they can fund their study and living costs while living in Australia in line with visa requirements.

“A lot of them are cold-called purporting to be government agencies from their home country saying that they’ve got a warrant or something similar that they need to resolve by paying xyz amount to clear it,” he said.

Most students targeted are females, predominantly from Asian countries, but students from varying backgrounds have been targeted.

Officer in charge of Finance and Cybercrime Investigation Branch Detective Superintendent Adam Rice said often those targeted do not want to question a purported authority.

“They are law abiding citizens, they have been their whole lives and the first call they get, they get told to do something, they do,” he said.

Cashed-up international students have become the target of scammers threatening arrest – or worse – in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. International arrival area at Adelaide Airport. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Identifying the leak

Police efforts have also been focused on identifying potential information leaks which alert scammers about international students arriving in Australia.

“There has been a lot of cases where almost literally boots off the plane and onto the ground and they are getting calls,” Supt Rice said.

“So how is that? How do they know that person has just landed and just now an international student so there is some compromise somewhere in that system?”

The personal details of international students pass through numerous hands as they prepare to come to Australia including educational facilities, airlines, student accommodation and specialised immigration agencies.

Scammed of 600k

The case of a female student from China involving more than $600,000 was brought to the attention of SA Police after contact from partner authorities who were monitoring suspicious international transactions.

Supt Rice said law enforcement monitoring transactions suspected a similar type of scam was at play – known as a “virtual kidnapping”.

“It’s the same type of concept if you like but it’s been purported that the person has been kidnapped in a location and people back home maybe are being asked to transfer funds to stop the kidnapping,” he said.

Police moved quickly and managed to recover about $110,000 of the cash from landing in the hands of scammers.

A female student from China was scammed of $600,000. Police moved quickly and managed to recover about $110,000 of the cash from landing in the hands of scammers. Picture: iStock

Stopping the scammers

Supt Rice said suspending transfers and stopping cash from lobbing into the wrong hands was often difficult and largely depended on the speed of a report to police.

“The speed of transaction is important for us,” he said.

“You’ve got to get them in that first few days – it’s hard to recover even though sometimes we know where the money is sitting, some of those banks don’t play ball with us internationally. Some foreign national banks don’t play in that space.”

He said police were working with government departments and consulates to warn international students about potential scams, including placing signage up at the state’s universities.

The statistics

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which maintains Scam Watch, one of the bodies monitoring scam activity estimates that more than $8m have been lost to threat of arrest scams already this year Australia wide.

In 2022 Scam Watch recorded 239 reports of threat of arrest scams.

Threat of arrest scammers do not only target students. They cast a broad net using text message or cold calls and have been linked to significant losses by people with disabilities who believe they are talking to police.

In other cases from around Australia targets of the scam have been told by criminals pretending to work for the ATO that their account is being used for money laundering.

They are told to move the funds to a holding account while the investigation continues, but never get their funds back.

Originally published as South Australian Police lift lid on how scammers target international students, including a Chinese woman conned out of $600k