May 13 (Reported by Lü Zhihao and Chai Shuo) -- The Public Security Bureau of Dingzhou City in Hebei Province announced on May 13 that the police force there successfully cracked down on a fake monk and nun fraud gang, seizing more than 2700 amulets and several conversion certificates stamped with fake steel seals of "Chinese Buddhist Association" and other fraud props. Currently, the ten suspects involved, including Yuan and Wang, have been administratively detained.
According to the introduction, since April this year, the city has seen an increasing number of fraud cases involving impersonation of monks and nuns. The police force then selected capable police officers for investigation. After nearly a month's investigation and interview, it was finally determined that five men and five women from Anhui Province, including Yuan and Wang, were under major suspicion of being involved in such crimes.
The police learned that the ten persons including Yuan and Wang checked into a hotel in Dingzhou City on April 20, went out early in the morning and returned late every day with small travel bags. Moreover, their rooms contained large quantities of Buddhist supplies, accessories and monk/nun clothing. Several toiletry bags found in bathrooms even contained combs and long hair. Based on this, the police deduced that these ten people should be fake monks and nuns, and secretly followed Yuan and others. After determining the whereabouts and obtaining sufficient evidence, the police summoned the ten "monks and nuns" according to law on April 27.
According to confession, since April, the gang had rushed to Zhuozhou and Dingzhou areas, wearing fake monk/nun clothing and holding fake conversion certificates and fake merit books for donors, impersonating monks and nuns from Dafosi Temple in Zhengding, Hebei, claiming to raise funds for gilding Buddha statues. They used honeyed words to sell various cheap amulets and Buddhist beads at high prices to the public and collected incense money to defraud money. In less than one month, the gang had already defrauded more than RMB10,000 yuan in cash.
In the rooms where Yuan and others stayed, the police seized 2707 carefully forged amulets, seven conversion certificates stamped with fake steel seals of "Chinese Buddhist Association", ten sets of monk/nun clothing and other items used as props for committing fraud.