A man surnamed Ma called police on Nov 17 and said he was cheated out of 350,000 yuan.

Police discovered the money had been transferred to a bank account registered in Jiangxi province, and that the money was being withdrawn in Henan and Guizhou provinces.

After investigation, they arrested six men in Nanchang, Jiangxi province on Dec 20. The gang was found to be carrying 648 bank cards, 26 mobile phones and 30,000 yuan in cash.

The gang was brought back to Beijing on Dec 26.

Beijing police launched a campaign to deal with telephone scams on Nov 9. They said losses amounted to more than 320 million yuan this year alone. In the week from Dec 23 to Tuesday, police got 5,960 reports from citizens about telephone scams and stopped 193 people from being conned out of 334,000 yuan.