‘Missing’ Sydney schoolgirl in virtual kidnap scam

A Sydney schoolgirl stopped all contact with family, turned off her phone and hid at a stranger’s apartment after being convinced it was a directive by Chinese police.

A man walks past an advertisement for WeChat Pay, a digital payment system set up by the Chinese social media giant. Picture: AFP

A Sydney schoolgirl agreed to sever all contact with her family and friends, switch off her mobile phone and hide at a stranger’s apartment after being convinced it was a directive by Chinese police.

By the time NSW detectives found the missing teen last week, her distraught parents had paid the schoolgirl’s purported kidnappers almost a quarter of a million dollars for her safe return.

In a bizarre twist, the 22-year-old Sydney university student who hid the schoolgirl in his unit on the city’s lower north shore had also been duped into thinking he was performing his “civic duty” at the behest of Chinese authorities.

The extortion scam is the latest incident in a global rise of “virtual abductions” that has seen at least nine Chinese nationals “kidnapped” in Australia so far this year and more than $2m paid into scammers’ offshore accounts.

The schoolgirl, an international student from China completing her higher school certificate in Sydney, had been reported missing by concerned friends about 2am on Tuesday, September 8.

Police were told the 18-year-old’s family in China had received “proof of life” videos and images of the schoolgirl via Chinese messaging and social media app WeChat and informed she was being held in an undisclosed location.

The images were followed by further messages, claiming to be from the Chinese authorities, instructing the schoolgirl’s parents to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure her release.

The logo of the Chinese instant messaging application WeChat on an IOS device. Picture: AFP

The teen was missing for more than a week before investigators from the NSW State Crime Command’s Robbery and Serious Crime Squad and local detectives tracked her to a car in the inner-city suburb of Pyrmont and traced her supposed kidnapping to a student’s apartment in Chatswood.

State Crime Command Director Darren Bennett said the scam had unfolded over several months.

“The initial contact was made in July this year after the woman received an email from persons purporting to be Chinese police and claiming her personal details had been illegally used on a package intercepted overseas,” the detective chief superintendent said.

The schoolgirl was eventually told she needed to go into hiding while the matter was resolved.

“At the same time, they’ve told a Sydney university student that he was required to house her on behalf of the Chinese police because she was a protected witness in Australia,” he said.

“After they meet, he takes her to his place, she sends photos of herself to prove she’s alive to her parents, and the scammers extort the parents saying she’s been kidnapped and ‘We’re going to kill her unless you give us money.’ Since that time, more than $213,000 has been transferred into an offshore account.”

While she had been officially missing, Superintendent Bennett said that the teen had never actually been held against her will.

“The 22-year-old was still going to university each day and leaving her in his apartment on her own,” he said. “When he got home, he’d help her with her homework and her preparation for her exams.

“She told police: ‘He treated me really well. He didn’t tie me up. I just knew I had to stay there because the Chinese police were telling me to, and he knew he had to have me there because the Chinese police were telling him to.’ ”

He said investigators had dedicated a vast number of hours and resources to searching for the teen after she vanished and located her last Tuesday only after she briefly switched on her mobile.

“We had to do saturation, covert searching of both Chippendale and Chatswood, based on the information we had uncovered, taking up literally hundreds of hours of police time,” he said.

“It was an enormous job and, in this case, we didn’t locate her until she turned on her phone — even then we only had a window of about eight minutes. The bottom line is this person was never under any genuine threat to their safety.”

He said the incident served as a reminder of the evolving threat of “virtual kidnapping” scams.

“NSW police have been assured from the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney that no person claiming to be from a Chinese authority will contact a student on their phone and demand monies to be paid or transferred. If this occurs, it is a scam,” he said.